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diff --git a/old/hardt10.txt b/old/hardt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d3defd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hardt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12513 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hard Times, by Charles Dickens* +#15 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Plant nothing else, +and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of +reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any +service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own +children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these +children. Stick to Facts, sir!' + +The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and +the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by +underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's +sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a +forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found +commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. +The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, +thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's +voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis +was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of +his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its +shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum +pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts +stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, +square legs, square shoulders, - nay, his very neckcloth, trained +to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a +stubborn fact, as it was, - all helped the emphasis. + +'In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!' + +The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person +present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the +inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, +ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they +were full to the brim. + + + +CHAPTER II - MURDERING THE INNOCENTS + + + +THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and +calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and +two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into +allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir - peremptorily +Thomas - Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and +the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh +and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what +it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple +arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief +into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John +Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent +persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind - no, sir! + +In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, +whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in +general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words 'boys and +girls,' for 'sir,' Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind +to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of +facts. + +Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before +mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with +facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of +childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, +too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young +imaginations that were to be stormed away. + +'Girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with +his square forefinger, 'I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?' + +'Sissy Jupe, sir,' explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, +and curtseying. + +'Sissy is not a name,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Don't call yourself +Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.' + +'It's father as calls me Sissy, sir,' returned the young girl in a +trembling voice, and with another curtsey. + +'Then he has no business to do it,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Tell him +he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?' + +'He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.' + +Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with +his hand. + +'We don't want to know anything about that, here. You mustn't tell +us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don't he?' + +'If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break +horses in the ring, sir.' + +'You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. +Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I +dare say?' + +'Oh yes, sir.' + +'Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and +horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.' + +(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) + +'Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!' said Mr. Gradgrind, +for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. 'Girl number +twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest +of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.' + +The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on +Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of +sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the +intensely white-washed room, irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and +girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, +divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the +corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning of a +sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the other +side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, whereas the girl +was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a +deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone upon +her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same +rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever +possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the +short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate +contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their +form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation +of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so +unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as +though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. + +'Bitzer,' said Thomas Gradgrind. 'Your definition of a horse.' + +'Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four +grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the +spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but +requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' +Thus (and much more) Bitzer. + +'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'You know what a +horse is.' + +She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could +have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, +after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, +and so catching the light upon his quivering ends of lashes that +they looked like the antennae of busy insects, put his knuckles to +his freckled forehead, and sat down again. + +The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and +drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other +people's too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always +with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always +to be heard of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to +fight all England. To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a +genius for coming up to the scratch, wherever and whatever it was, +and proving himself an ugly customer. He would go in and damage +any subject whatever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, +exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he always fought All England) +to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock +the wind out of common sense, and render that unlucky adversary +deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from high +authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, when +Commissioners should reign upon earth. + +'Very well,' said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his +arms. 'That's a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would +you paper a room with representations of horses?' + +After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, 'Yes, +sir!' Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face +that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, 'No, sir!' - as the custom +is, in these examinations. + +'Of course, No. Why wouldn't you?' + +A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of +breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn't paper a room at +all, but would paint it. + +'You must paper it,' said the gentleman, rather warmly. + +'You must paper it,' said Thomas Gradgrind, 'whether you like it or +not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What do you mean, boy?' + +'I'll explain to you, then,' said the gentleman, after another and +a dismal pause, 'why you wouldn't paper a room with representations +of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of +rooms in reality - in fact? Do you?' + +'Yes, sir!' from one half. 'No, sir!' from the other. + +'Of course no,' said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the +wrong half. 'Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you +don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don't +have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another name for +Fact.' Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation. + +'This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,' said the +gentleman. 'Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were going to +carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of +flowers upon it?' + +There being a general conviction by this time that 'No, sir!' was +always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of NO was +very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them +Sissy Jupe. + +'Girl number twenty,' said the gentleman, smiling in the calm +strength of knowledge. + +Sissy blushed, and stood up. + +'So you would carpet your room - or your husband's room, if you +were a grown woman, and had a husband - with representations of +flowers, would you?' said the gentleman. 'Why would you?' + +'If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,' returned the girl. + +'And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and +have people walking over them with heavy boots?' + +'It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if +you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very +pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy - ' + +'Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy,' cried the gentleman, quite +elated by coming so happily to his point. 'That's it! You are +never to fancy.' + +'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, +'to do anything of that kind.' + +'Fact, fact, fact!' said the gentleman. And 'Fact, fact, fact!' +repeated Thomas Gradgrind. + +'You are to be in all things regulated and governed,' said the +gentleman, 'by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of +fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people +to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard +the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You +are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a +contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you +cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find +that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your +crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and +butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds +going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented +upon walls. You must use,' said the gentleman, 'for all these +purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of +mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and +demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is +taste.' + +The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she +looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the +world afforded. + +'Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild,' said the gentleman, 'will proceed to +give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at +your request, to observe his mode of procedure.' + +Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. 'Mr. M'Choakumchild, we only wait +for you.' + +So, Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one +hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at +the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so +many pianoforte legs. He had been put through an immense variety +of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. +Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, +geography, and general cosmography, the sciences of compound +proportion, algebra, land-surveying and levelling, vocal music, and +drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled +fingers. He had worked his stony way into Her Majesty's most +Honourable Privy Council's Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off +the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, French, +German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water Sheds of +all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the +peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all +the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all +their boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the +compass. Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only +learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught +much more! + +He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in +the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, +one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good +M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each +jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill +outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim +him and distort him! + + + +CHAPTER III - A LOOPHOLE + + + +MR. GRADGRIND walked homeward from the school, in a state of +considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it +to be a model. He intended every child in it to be a model - just +as the young Gradgrinds were all models. + +There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every one. +They had been lectured at, from their tenderest years; coursed, +like little hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, they +had been made to run to the lecture-room. The first object with +which they had an association, or of which they had a remembrance, +was a large black board with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white +figures on it. + +Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an Ogre Fact +forbid! I only use the word to express a monster in a lecturing +castle, with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, +taking childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical +dens by the hair. + +No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in +the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had +ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I +wonder what you are! No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on +the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old +dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven +Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No little +Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow +with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who +killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow +who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those celebrities, +and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating +quadruped with several stomachs. + +To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. +Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the +wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now +looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical +figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within a +mile or two of a great town - called Coketown in the present +faithful guide-book. + +A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. +Not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising +fact in the landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico +darkening the principal windows, as its master's heavy brows +overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved +house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on that side; a +total of twelve in this wing, a total of twelve in the other wing; +four-and-twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden +and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical account- +book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and water-service, all of the +primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fire-proof from top to +bottom; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with all their brushes +and brooms; everything that heart could desire. + +Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had +cabinets in various departments of science too. They had a little +conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a +little mineralogical cabinet; and the specimens were all arranged +and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore looked as though they +might have been broken from the parent substances by those +tremendously hard instruments their own names; and, to paraphrase +the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found his way into +their nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than +this, what was it for good gracious goodness' sake, that the greedy +little Gradgrinds grasped it! + +Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. +He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but he would +probably have described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy +Jupe, upon a definition) as 'an eminently practical' father. He +had a particular pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was +considered to have a special application to him. Whatsoever the +public meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such +meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding +to his eminently practical friend Gradgrind. This always pleased +the eminently practical friend. He knew it to be his due, but his +due was acceptable. + +He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, +which was neither town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, +when his ears were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing and +banging band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had +there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray. A +flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind +that it was 'Sleary's Horse-riding' which claimed their suffrages. +Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a money-box at its +elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture, +took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very +narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugurating the +entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act. +Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which +must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to +'elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained +performing dog Merrylegs.' He was also to exhibit 'his astounding +feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession +backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in +mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other +country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from +enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.' The same Signor Jupe +was to 'enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with +his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.' Lastly, he was to wind +them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr. William +Button, of Tooley Street, in 'the highly novel and laughable hippo- +comedietta of The Tailor's Journey to Brentford.' + +Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but +passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the +noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of +Correction. But, the turning of the road took him by the back of +the booth, and at the back of the booth a number of children were +congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in +at the hidden glories of the place. + +This brought him to a stop. 'Now, to think of these vagabonds,' +said he, 'attracting the young rabble from a model school.' + +A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and the +young rabble, he took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to look for +any child he knew by name, and might order off. Phenomenon almost +incredible though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but his +own metallurgical Louisa, peeping with all her might through a hole +in a deal board, and his own mathematical Thomas abasing himself on +the ground to catch but a hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean +flower-act! + +Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his +family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, +and said: + +'Louisa!! Thomas!!' + +Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked at her father +with more boldness than Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas did not look at +him, but gave himself up to be taken home like a machine. + +'In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!' said Mr. Gradgrind, +leading each away by a hand; 'what do you do here?' + +'Wanted to see what it was like,' returned Louisa, shortly. + +'What it was like?' + +'Yes, father.' + +There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly +in the girl: yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her +face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with +nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself +somehow, which brightened its expression. Not with the brightness +natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful +flashes, which had something painful in them, analogous to the +changes on a blind face groping its way. + +She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day +would seem to become a woman all at once. Her father thought so as +he looked at her. She was pretty. Would have been self-willed (he +thought in his eminently practical way) but for her bringing-up. + +'Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it difficult to +believe that you, with your education and resources, should have +brought your sister to a scene like this.' + +'I brought him, father,' said Louisa, quickly. 'I asked him to +come.' + +'I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to hear it. It +makes Thomas no better, and it makes you worse, Louisa.' + +She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down her cheek. + +'You! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; +Thomas and you, who may be said to be replete with facts; Thomas +and you, who have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas +and you, here!' cried Mr. Gradgrind. 'In this degraded position! +I am amazed.' + +'I was tired, father. I have been tired a long time,' said Louisa. + +'Tired? Of what?' asked the astonished father. + +'I don't know of what - of everything, I think.' + +'Say not another word,' returned Mr. Gradgrind. 'You are childish. +I will hear no more.' He did not speak again until they had walked +some half-a-mile in silence, when he gravely broke out with: 'What +would your best friends say, Louisa? Do you attach no value to +their good opinion? What would Mr. Bounderby say?' At the mention +of this name, his daughter stole a look at him, remarkable for its +intense and searching character. He saw nothing of it, for before +he looked at her, she had again cast down her eyes! + +'What,' he repeated presently, 'would Mr. Bounderby say?' All the +way to Stone Lodge, as with grave indignation he led the two +delinquents home, he repeated at intervals 'What would Mr. +Bounderby say?' - as if Mr. Bounderby had been Mrs. Grundy. + + + +CHAPTER IV - MR. BOUNDERBY + + + +NOT being Mrs. Grundy, who was Mr. Bounderby? + +Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind's bosom friend, +as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach that spiritual +relationship towards another man perfectly devoid of sentiment. So +near was Mr. Bounderby - or, if the reader should prefer it, so far +off. + +He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. +A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made +out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to +make so much of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, +swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face +that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A +man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a +balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently +vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, +through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old +ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of +humility. + +A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr. +Bounderby looked older; his seven or eight and forty might have had +the seven or eight added to it again, without surprising anybody. +He had not much hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; +and that what was left, all standing up in disorder, was in that +condition from being constantly blown about by his windy +boastfulness. + +In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing on the +hearthrug, warming himself before the fire, Mr. Bounderby delivered +some observations to Mrs. Gradgrind on the circumstance of its +being his birthday. He stood before the fire, partly because it +was a cool spring afternoon, though the sun shone; partly because +the shade of Stone Lodge was always haunted by the ghost of damp +mortar; partly because he thus took up a commanding position, from +which to subdue Mrs. Gradgrind. + +'I hadn't a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn't know such +a thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a +pigsty. That's the way I spent my tenth birthday. Not that a +ditch was new to me, for I was born in a ditch.' + +Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, +of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking +physic without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom +of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of +fact tumbling on her; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped it was a dry ditch? + +'No! As wet as a sop. A foot of water in it,' said Mr. Bounderby. + +'Enough to give a baby cold,' Mrs. Gradgrind considered. + +'Cold? I was born with inflammation of the lungs, and of +everything else, I believe, that was capable of inflammation,' +returned Mr. Bounderby. 'For years, ma'am, I was one of the most +miserable little wretches ever seen. I was so sickly, that I was +always moaning and groaning. I was so ragged and dirty, that you +wouldn't have touched me with a pair of tongs.' + +Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the most appropriate +thing her imbecility could think of doing. + +'How I fought through it, I don't know,' said Bounderby. 'I was +determined, I suppose. I have been a determined character in later +life, and I suppose I was then. Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, +and nobody to thank for my being here, but myself.' + +Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped that his mother - + +'My mother? Bolted, ma'am!' said Bounderby. + +Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave it up. + +'My mother left me to my grandmother,' said Bounderby; 'and, +according to the best of my remembrance, my grandmother was the +wickedest and the worst old woman that ever lived. If I got a +little pair of shoes by any chance, she would take 'em off and sell +'em for drink. Why, I have known that grandmother of mine lie in +her bed and drink her four-teen glasses of liquor before +breakfast!' + +Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no other sign of +vitality, looked (as she always did) like an indifferently executed +transparency of a small female figure, without enough light behind +it. + +'She kept a chandler's shop,' pursued Bounderby, 'and kept me in an +egg-box. That was the cot of my infancy; an old egg-box. As soon +as I was big enough to run away, of course I ran away. Then I +became a young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me +about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and +starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything +else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know that +very well.' + +His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great +social distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest, +was only to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the +boast. + +'I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. Whether I +was to do it or not, ma'am, I did it. I pulled through it, though +nobody threw me out a rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, vagabond, +labourer, porter, clerk, chief manager, small partner, Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown. Those are the antecedents, and the +culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learnt his letters from +the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first able to +tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the steeple clock of +St. Giles's Church, London, under the direction of a drunken +cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible vagrant. +Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and +your model schools, and your training schools, and your whole +kettle-of-fish of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells +you plainly, all right, all correct - he hadn't such advantages - +but let us have hard-headed, solid-fisted people - the education +that made him won't do for everybody, he knows well - such and such +his education was, however, and you may force him to swallow +boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the facts of +his life.' + +Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown stopped. He stopped just as his eminently practical +friend, still accompanied by the two young culprits, entered the +room. His eminently practical friend, on seeing him, stopped also, +and gave Louisa a reproachful look that plainly said, 'Behold your +Bounderby!' + +'Well!' blustered Mr. Bounderby, 'what's the matter? What is young +Thomas in the dumps about?' + +He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa. + +'We were peeping at the circus,' muttered Louisa, haughtily, +without lifting up her eyes, 'and father caught us.' + +'And, Mrs. Gradgrind,' said her husband in a lofty manner, 'I +should as soon have expected to find my children reading poetry.' + +'Dear me,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. 'How can you, Louisa and +Thomas! I wonder at you. I declare you're enough to make one +regret ever having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say +I wish I hadn't. Then what would you have done, I should like to +know?' + +Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent +remarks. He frowned impatiently. + +'As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't +go and look at the shells and minerals and things provided for you, +instead of circuses!' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'You know, as well as I +do, no young people have circus masters, or keep circuses in +cabinets, or attend lectures about circuses. What can you possibly +want to know of circuses then? I am sure you have enough to do, if +that's what you want. With my head in its present state, I +couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts you have got to +attend to.' + +'That's the reason!' pouted Louisa. + +'Don't tell me that's the reason, because it can't be nothing of +the sort,' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'Go and be somethingological +directly.' Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and +usually dismissed her children to their studies with this general +injunction to choose their pursuit. + +In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind's stock of facts in general was woefully +defective; but Mr. Gradgrind in raising her to her high matrimonial +position, had been influenced by two reasons. Firstly, she was +most satisfactory as a question of figures; and, secondly, she had +'no nonsense' about her. By nonsense he meant fancy; and truly it +is probable she was as free from any alloy of that nature, as any +human being not arrived at the perfection of an absolute idiot, +ever was. + +The simple circumstance of being left alone with her husband and +Mr. Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this admirable lady again +without collision between herself and any other fact. So, she once +more died away, and nobody minded her. + +'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair to the fireside, +'you are always so interested in my young people - particularly in +Louisa - that I make no apology for saying to you, I am very much +vexed by this discovery. I have systematically devoted myself (as +you know) to the education of the reason of my family. The reason +is (as you know) the only faculty to which education should be +addressed. 'And yet, Bounderby, it would appear from this +unexpected circumstance of to-day, though in itself a trifling one, +as if something had crept into Thomas's and Louisa's minds which is +- or rather, which is not - I don't know that I can express myself +better than by saying - which has never been intended to be +developed, and in which their reason has no part.' + +'There certainly is no reason in looking with interest at a parcel +of vagabonds,' returned Bounderby. 'When I was a vagabond myself, +nobody looked with any interest at me; I know that.' + +'Then comes the question; said the eminently practical father, with +his eyes on the fire, 'in what has this vulgar curiosity its rise?' + +'I'll tell you in what. In idle imagination.' + +'I hope not,' said the eminently practical; 'I confess, however, +that the misgiving has crossed me on my way home.' + +'In idle imagination, Gradgrind,' repeated Bounderby. 'A very bad +thing for anybody, but a cursed bad thing for a girl like Louisa. +I should ask Mrs. Gradgrind's pardon for strong expressions, but +that she knows very well I am not a refined character. Whoever +expects refinement in me will be disappointed. I hadn't a refined +bringing up.' + +'Whether,' said Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in his pockets, +and his cavernous eyes on the fire, 'whether any instructor or +servant can have suggested anything? Whether Louisa or Thomas can +have been reading anything? Whether, in spite of all precautions, +any idle story-book can have got into the house? Because, in minds +that have been practically formed by rule and line, from the cradle +upwards, this is so curious, so incomprehensible.' + +'Stop a bit!' cried Bounderby, who all this time had been standing, +as before, on the hearth, bursting at the very furniture of the +room with explosive humility. 'You have one of those strollers' +children in the school.' + +'Cecilia Jupe, by name,' said Mr. Gradgrind, with something of a +stricken look at his friend. + +'Now, stop a bit!' cried Bounderby again. 'How did she come +there?' + +'Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first time, only +just now. She specially applied here at the house to be admitted, +as not regularly belonging to our town, and - yes, you are right, +Bounderby, you are right.' + +'Now, stop a bit!' cried Bounderby, once more. 'Louisa saw her +when she came?' + +'Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the application to +me. But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, in Mrs. Gradgrind's +presence.' + +'Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind,' said Bounderby, 'what passed?' + +'Oh, my poor health!' returned Mrs. Gradgrind. 'The girl wanted to +come to the school, and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come to the +school, and Louisa and Thomas both said that the girl wanted to +come, and that Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it +possible to contradict them when such was the fact!' + +'Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Turn this +girl to the right about, and there's an end of it.' + +'I am much of your opinion.' + +'Do it at once,' said Bounderby, 'has always been my motto from a +child. When I thought I would run away from my egg-box and my +grandmother, I did it at once. Do you the same. Do this at once!' + +'Are you walking?' asked his friend. 'I have the father's address. +Perhaps you would not mind walking to town with me?' + +'Not the least in the world,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'as long as you +do it at once!' + +So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat - he always threw it on, as +expressing a man who had been far too busily employed in making +himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his hat - and with his +hands in his pockets, sauntered out into the hall. 'I never wear +gloves,' it was his custom to say. 'I didn't climb up the ladder +in them. - Shouldn't be so high up, if I had.' + +Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. +Gradgrind went up-stairs for the address, he opened the door of the +children's study and looked into that serene floor-clothed +apartment, which, notwithstanding its book-cases and its cabinets +and its variety of learned and philosophical appliances, had much +of the genial aspect of a room devoted to hair-cutting. Louisa +languidly leaned upon the window looking out, without looking at +anything, while young Thomas stood sniffing revengefully at the +fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger Gradgrinds, were out at +lecture in custody; and little Jane, after manufacturing a good +deal of moist pipe-clay on her face with slate-pencil and tears, +had fallen asleep over vulgar fractions. + +'It's all right now, Louisa: it's all right, young Thomas,' said +Mr. Bounderby; 'you won't do so any more. I'll answer for it's +being all over with father. Well, Louisa, that's worth a kiss, +isn't it?' + +'You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,' returned Louisa, when she had +coldly paused, and slowly walked across the room, and ungraciously +raised her cheek towards him, with her face turned away. + +'Always my pet; ain't you, Louisa?' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Good-bye, +Louisa!' + +He went his way, but she stood on the same spot, rubbing the cheek +he had kissed, with her handkerchief, until it was burning red. +She was still doing this, five minutes afterwards. + +'What are you about, Loo?' her brother sulkily remonstrated. +'You'll rub a hole in your face.' + +'You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you like, Tom. I +wouldn't cry!' + + + +CHAPTER V - THE KEYNOTE + + + +COKETOWN, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was +a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. +Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before +pursuing our tune. + +It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if +the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a +town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. +It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which +interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and +ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a +river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of +building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling +all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked +monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state +of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very +like one another, and many small streets still more like one +another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went +in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same +pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same +as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the +last and the next. + +These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the +work by which it was sustained; against them were to be set off, +comforts of life which found their way all over the world, and +elegancies of life which made, we will not ask how much of the fine +lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place mentioned. The +rest of its features were voluntary, and they were these. + +You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the +members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there - as the +members of eighteen religious persuasions had done - they made it a +pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in +highly ornamental examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top of it. +The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with +a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles +like florid wooden legs. All the public inscriptions in the town +were painted alike, in severe characters of black and white. The +jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been +the jail, the town-hall might have been either, or both, or +anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the +graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the +material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the +immaterial. The M'Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school +of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man +were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in +hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn't state in figures, +or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in +the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen. + +A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, of +course got on well? Why no, not quite well. No? Dear me! + +No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all respects +like gold that had stood the fire. First, the perplexing mystery +of the place was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations? +Because, whoever did, the labouring people did not. It was very +strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday morning, and note +how few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving +the sick and nervous mad, called away from their own quarter, from +their own close rooms, from the corners of their own streets, where +they lounged listlessly, gazing at all the church and chapel going, +as at a thing with which they had no manner of concern. Nor was it +merely the stranger who noticed this, because there was a native +organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be heard of +in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for +acts of parliament that should make these people religious by main +force. Then came the Teetotal Society, who complained that these +same people would get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that +they did get drunk, and proved at tea parties that no inducement, +human or Divine (except a medal), would induce them to forego their +custom of getting drunk. Then came the chemist and druggist, with +other tabular statements, showing that when they didn't get drunk, +they took opium. Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail, +with more tabular statements, outdoing all the previous tabular +statements, and showing that the same people would resort to low +haunts, hidden from the public eye, where they heard low singing +and saw low dancing, and mayhap joined in it; and where A. B., aged +twenty-four next birthday, and committed for eighteen months' +solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever shown himself +particularly worthy of belief) his ruin began, as he was perfectly +sure and confident that otherwise he would have been a tip-top +moral specimen. Then came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two +gentlemen at this present moment walking through Coketown, and both +eminently practical, who could, on occasion, furnish more tabular +statements derived from their own personal experience, and +illustrated by cases they had known and seen, from which it clearly +appeared - in short, it was the only clear thing in the case - that +these same people were a bad lot altogether, gentlemen; that do +what you would for them they were never thankful for it, gentlemen; +that they were restless, gentlemen; that they never knew what they +wanted; that they lived upon the best, and bought fresh butter; and +insisted on Mocha coffee, and rejected all but prime parts of meat, +and yet were eternally dissatisfied and unmanageable. In short, it +was the moral of the old nursery fable: + + +There was an old woman, and what do you think? +She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; +Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet, +And yet this old woman would NEVER be quiet. + + +Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between the +case of the Coketown population and the case of the little +Gradgrinds? Surely, none of us in our sober senses and acquainted +with figures, are to be told at this time of day, that one of the +foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown working-people +had been for scores of years, deliberately set at nought? That +there was any Fancy in them demanding to be brought into healthy +existence instead of struggling on in convulsions? That exactly in +the ratio as they worked long and monotonously, the craving grew +within them for some physical relief - some relaxation, encouraging +good humour and good spirits, and giving them a vent - some +recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a +stirring band of music - some occasional light pie in which even +M'Choakumchild had no finger - which craving must and would be +satisfied aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, until the +laws of the Creation were repealed? + +'This man lives at Pod's End, and I don't quite know Pod's End,' +said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Which is it, Bounderby?' + +Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, but knew no more +respecting it. So they stopped for a moment, looking about. + +Almost as they did so, there came running round the corner of the +street at a quick pace and with a frightened look, a girl whom Mr. +Gradgrind recognized. 'Halloa!' said he. 'Stop! Where are you +going! Stop!' Girl number twenty stopped then, palpitating, and +made him a curtsey. + +'Why are you tearing about the streets,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'in +this improper manner?' + +'I was - I was run after, sir,' the girl panted, 'and I wanted to +get away.' + +'Run after?' repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 'Who would run after you?' + +The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for her, by the +colourless boy, Bitzer, who came round the corner with such blind +speed and so little anticipating a stoppage on the pavement, that +he brought himself up against Mr. Gradgrind's waistcoat and +rebounded into the road. + +'What do you mean, boy?' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'What are you doing? +How dare you dash against - everybody - in this manner?' Bitzer +picked up his cap, which the concussion had knocked off; and +backing, and knuckling his forehead, pleaded that it was an +accident. + +'Was this boy running after you, Jupe?' asked Mr. Gradgrind. + +'Yes, sir,' said the girl reluctantly. + +'No, I wasn't, sir!' cried Bitzer. 'Not till she run away from me. +But the horse-riders never mind what they say, sir; they're famous +for it. You know the horse-riders are famous for never minding +what they say,' addressing Sissy. 'It's as well known in the town +as - please, sir, as the multiplication table isn't known to the +horse-riders.' Bitzer tried Mr. Bounderby with this. + +'He frightened me so,' said the girl, 'with his cruel faces!' + +'Oh!' cried Bitzer. 'Oh! An't you one of the rest! An't you a +horse-rider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her if she would +know how to define a horse to-morrow, and offered to tell her +again, and she ran away, and I ran after her, sir, that she might +know how to answer when she was asked. You wouldn't have thought +of saying such mischief if you hadn't been a horse-rider?' + +'Her calling seems to be pretty well known among 'em,' observed Mr. +Bounderby. 'You'd have had the whole school peeping in a row, in a +week.' + +'Truly, I think so,' returned his friend. 'Bitzer, turn you about +and take yourself home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let me hear of +your running in this manner any more, boy, and you will hear of me +through the master of the school. You understand what I mean. Go +along.' + +The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead again, +glanced at Sissy, turned about, and retreated. + +'Now, girl,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'take this gentleman and me to +your father's; we are going there. What have you got in that +bottle you are carrying?' + +'Gin,' said Mr. Bounderby. + +'Dear, no, sir! It's the nine oils.' + +'The what?' cried Mr. Bounderby. + +'The nine oils, sir, to rub father with.' + +'Then,' said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud short laugh, 'what the +devil do you rub your father with nine oils for?' + +'It's what our people aways use, sir, when they get any hurts in +the ring,' replied the girl, looking over her shoulder, to assure +herself that her pursuer was gone. 'They bruise themselves very +bad sometimes.' + +'Serve 'em right,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'for being idle.' She +glanced up at his face, with mingled astonishment and dread. + +'By George!' said Mr. Bounderby, 'when I was four or five years +younger than you, I had worse bruises upon me than ten oils, twenty +oils, forty oils, would have rubbed off. I didn't get 'em by +posture-making, but by being banged about. There was no rope- +dancing for me; I danced on the bare ground and was larruped with +the rope.' + +Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so rough a man +as Mr. Bounderby. His character was not unkind, all things +considered; it might have been a very kind one indeed, if he had +only made some round mistake in the arithmetic that balanced it, +years ago. He said, in what he meant for a reassuring tone, as +they turned down a narrow road, 'And this is Pod's End; is it, +Jupe?' + +'This is it, sir, and - if you wouldn't mind, sir - this is the +house.' + +She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little public- +house, with dim red lights in it. As haggard and as shabby, as if, +for want of custom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had gone +the way all drunkards go, and was very near the end of it. + +'It's only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you +wouldn't mind, and waiting there for a moment till I get a candle. +If you should hear a dog, sir, it's only Merrylegs, and he only +barks.' + +'Merrylegs and nine oils, eh!' said Mr. Bounderby, entering last +with his metallic laugh. 'Pretty well this, for a self-made man!' + + + +CHAPTER VI - SLEARY'S HORSEMANSHIP + + + +THE name of the public-house was the Pegasus's Arms. The Pegasus's +legs might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the +winged horse upon the sign-board, the Pegasus's Arms was inscribed +in Roman letters. Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing +scroll, the painter had touched off the lines: + + +Good malt makes good beer, +Walk in, and they'll draw it here; +Good wine makes good brandy, +Give us a call, and you'll find it handy. + + +Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was +another Pegasus - a theatrical one - with real gauze let in for his +wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness +made of red silk. + +As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had +not grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and +Mr. Bounderby received no offence from these idealities. They +followed the girl up some steep corner-stairs without meeting any +one, and stopped in the dark while she went on for a candle. They +expected every moment to hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly +trained performing dog had not barked when the girl and the candle +appeared together. + +'Father is not in our room, sir,' she said, with a face of great +surprise. 'If you wouldn't mind walking in, I'll find him +directly.' They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for +them, sped away with a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily +furnished room, with a bed in it. The white night-cap, embellished +with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in which +Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied +performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung +upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token +of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to +Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal +who went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut out of +it, for any sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the +Pegasus's Arms. + +They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy +went from one to another in quest of her father; and presently they +heard voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in +a great hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it +empty, and looked round with her hands clasped and her face full of +terror. + +'Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don't know why he +should go there, but he must be there; I'll bring him in a minute!' +She was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, +childish hair streaming behind her. + +'What does she mean!' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Back in a minute? It's +more than a mile off.' + +Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door, +and introducing himself with the words, 'By your leaves, +gentlemen!' walked in with his hands in his pockets. His face, +close-shaven, thin, and sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of +dark hair, brushed into a roll all round his head, and parted up +the centre. His legs were very robust, but shorter than legs of +good proportions should have been. His chest and back were as much +too broad, as his legs were too short. He was dressed in a +Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his +neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses' provender, and +sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded +of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the +other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This +gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. +Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the +Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies; in which popular +performance, a diminutive boy with an old face, who now accompanied +him, assisted as his infant son: being carried upside down over +his father's shoulder, by one foot, and held by the crown of his +head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father's hand, according to +the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed +to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, +white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into +so pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the +maternal part of the spectators; but in private, where his +characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely +gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy. + +'By your leaves, gentlemen,' said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing +round the room. 'It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see +Jupe!' + +'It was,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'His daughter has gone to fetch him, +but I can't wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message +for him with you.' + +'You see, my friend,' Mr. Bounderby put in, 'we are the kind of +people who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people +who don't know the value of time.' + +'I have not,' retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head +to foot, 'the honour of knowing you, - but if you mean that you can +make more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge +from your appearance, that you are about right.' + +'And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think,' +said Cupid. + +'Kidderminster, stow that!' said Mr. Childers. (Master +Kidderminster was Cupid's mortal name.) + +'What does he come here cheeking us for, then?' cried Master +Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. 'If you want +to cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.' + +'Kidderminster,' said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, 'stow that! +- Sir,' to Mr. Gradgrind, 'I was addressing myself to you. You may +or you may not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the +audience), that Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.' + +'Has - what has he missed?' asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the +potent Bounderby for assistance. + +'Missed his tip.' + +'Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done 'em +once,' said Master Kidderminster. 'Missed his tip at the banners, +too, and was loose in his ponging.' + +'Didn't do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in +his tumbling,' Mr. Childers interpreted. + +'Oh!' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that is tip, is it?' + +'In a general way that's missing his tip,' Mr. E. W. B. Childers +answered. + +'Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, +eh!' ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. 'Queer sort +of company, too, for a man who has raised himself!' + +'Lower yourself, then,' retorted Cupid. 'Oh Lord! if you've raised +yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.' + +'This is a very obtrusive lad!' said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and +knitting his brows on him. + +'We'd have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you +were coming,' retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. +'It's a pity you don't have a bespeak, being so particular. You're +on the Tight-Jeff, ain't you?' + +'What does this unmannerly boy mean,' asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing +him in a sort of desperation, 'by Tight-Jeff?' + +'There! Get out, get out!' said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young +friend from the room, rather in the prairie manner. 'Tight-Jeff or +Slack-Jeff, it don't much signify: it's only tight-rope and slack- +rope. You were going to give me a message for Jupe?' + +'Yes, I was.' + +'Then,' continued Mr. Childers, quickly, 'my opinion is, he will +never receive it. Do you know much of him?' + +'I never saw the man in my life.' + +'I doubt if you ever will see him now. It's pretty plain to me, +he's off.' + +'Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?' + +'Ay! I mean,' said Mr. Childers, with a nod, 'that he has cut. He +was goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was +goosed to-day. He has lately got in the way of being always +goosed, and he can't stand it.' + +'Why has he been - so very much - Goosed?' asked Mr. Gradgrind, +forcing the word out of himself, with great solemnity and +reluctance. + +'His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,' said +Childers. 'He has his points as a Cackler still, but he can't get +a living out of them.' + +'A Cackler!' Bounderby repeated. 'Here we go again!' + +'A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,' said Mr. E. W. B. +Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his +shoulder, and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair - which +all shook at once. 'Now, it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut +that man deeper, to know that his daughter knew of his being +goosed, than to go through with it.' + +'Good!' interrupted Mr. Bounderby. 'This is good, Gradgrind! A +man so fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her! This is +devilish good! Ha! ha! Now, I'll tell you what, young man. I +haven't always occupied my present station of life. I know what +these things are. You may be astonished to hear it, but my mother +- ran away from me.' + +E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all +astonished to hear it. + +'Very well,' said Bounderby. 'I was born in a ditch, and my mother +ran away from me. Do I excuse her for it? No. Have I ever +excused her for it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her +probably the very worst woman that ever lived in the world, except +my drunken grandmother. There's no family pride about me, there's +no imaginative sentimental humbug about me. I call a spade a +spade; and I call the mother of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, +without any fear or any favour, what I should call her if she had +been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So, with this man. He +is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that's what he is, in English.' + +'It's all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in +English or whether in French,' retorted Mr. E. W. B. Childers, +facing about. 'I am telling your friend what's the fact; if you +don't like to hear it, you can avail yourself of the open air. You +give it mouth enough, you do; but give it mouth in your own +building at least,' remonstrated E. W. B. with stern irony. 'Don't +give it mouth in this building, till you're called upon. You have +got some building of your own I dare say, now?' + +'Perhaps so,' replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his money and +laughing. + +'Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?' +said Childers. 'Because this isn't a strong building, and too much +of you might bring it down!' + +Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him, +as from a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind. + +'Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then +was seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes, and a +bundle tied up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will never +believe it of him, but he has cut away and left her.' + +'Pray,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'why will she never believe it of him?' + +'Because those two were one. Because they were never asunder. +Because, up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her,' said +Childers, taking a step or two to look into the empty trunk. Both +Mr. Childers and Master Kidderminster walked in a curious manner; +with their legs wider apart than the general run of men, and with a +very knowing assumption of being stiff in the knees. This walk was +common to all the male members of Sleary's company, and was +understood to express, that they were always on horseback. + +'Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her,' said Childers, +giving his hair another shake, as he looked up from the empty box. +'Now, he leaves her without anything to take to.' + +'It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to +express that opinion,' returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly. + +'I never apprenticed? I was apprenticed when I was seven year +old.' + +'Oh! Indeed?' said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having +been defrauded of his good opinion. 'I was not aware of its being +the custom to apprentice young persons to - ' + +'Idleness,' Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. 'No, by the +Lord Harry! Nor I!' + +'Her father always had it in his head,' resumed Childers, feigning +unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby's existence, 'that she was to be +taught the deuce-and-all of education. How it got into his head, I +can't say; I can only say that it never got out. He has been +picking up a bit of reading for her, here - and a bit of writing +for her, there - and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere else - +these seven years.' + +Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, +stroked his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal of doubt +and a little hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the first he had sought +to conciliate that gentleman, for the sake of the deserted girl. + +'When Sissy got into the school here,' he pursued, 'her father was +as pleased as Punch. I couldn't altogether make out why, myself, +as we were not stationary here, being but comers and goers +anywhere. I suppose, however, he had this move in his mind - he +was always half-cracked - and then considered her provided for. If +you should happen to have looked in to-night, for the purpose of +telling him that you were going to do her any little service,' said +Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and repeating his look, 'it +would be very fortunate and well-timed; very fortunate and well- +timed.' + +'On the contrary,' returned Mr. Gradgrind. 'I came to tell him +that her connections made her not an object for the school, and +that she must not attend any more. Still, if her father really has +left her, without any connivance on her part - Bounderby, let me +have a word with you.' + +Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his +equestrian walk, to the landing outside the door, and there stood +stroking his face, and softly whistling. While thus engaged, he +overheard such phrases in Mr. Bounderby's voice as 'No. I say no. +I advise you not. I say by no means.' While, from Mr. Gradgrind, +he heard in his much lower tone the words, 'But even as an example +to Louisa, of what this pursuit which has been the subject of a +vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in. Think of it, Bounderby, in +that point of view.' + +Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary's company gradually +gathered together from the upper regions, where they were +quartered, and, from standing about, talking in low voices to one +another and to Mr. Childers, gradually insinuated themselves and +him into the room. There were two or three handsome young women +among them, with their two or three husbands, and their two or +three mothers, and their eight or nine little children, who did the +fairy business when required. The father of one of the families +was in the habit of balancing the father of another of the families +on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often made +a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the +apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers could dance upon +rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl +hand-basins, ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at +nothing. All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack +wire and the tight-rope, and perform rapid acts on bare-backed +steeds; none of them were at all particular in respect of showing +their legs; and one of them, alone in a Greek chariot, drove six in +hand into every town they came to. They all assumed to be mighty +rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their private +dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic +arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company +would have produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there +was a remarkable gentleness and childishness about these people, a +special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring +readiness to help and pity one another, deserving often of as much +respect, and always of as much generous construction, as the every- +day virtues of any class of people in the world. + +Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, +with one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called +so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby +surface, and a muddled head which was never sober and never drunk. + +'Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose +breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s, 'Your +thervant! Thith ith a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith. You've +heard of my Clown and hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?' + +He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered 'Yes.' + +'Well, Thquire,' he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the +lining with his pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside for the +purpose. 'Ith it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, +Thquire?' + +'I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,' +said Mr. Gradgrind. + +'Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the +child, any more than I want to thtand in her way. I'm willing to +take her prentith, though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a +little huthky, Thquire, and not eathy heard by them ath don't know +me; but if you'd been chilled and heated, heated and chilled, +chilled and heated in the ring when you wath young, ath often ath I +have been, your voithe wouldn't have lathted out, Thquire, no more +than mine.' + +'I dare say not,' said Mr. Gradgrind. + +'What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? +Give it a name, Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease. + +'Nothing for me, I thank you,' said Mr. Gradgrind. + +'Don't thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you +haven't took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.' + +Here his daughter Josephine - a pretty fair-haired girl of +eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had +made a will at twelve, which she always carried about with her, +expressive of her dying desire to be drawn to the grave by the two +piebald ponies - cried, 'Father, hush! she has come back!' Then +came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she had run out of it. +And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their looks, and saw +no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took +refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady +(herself in the family-way), who knelt down on the floor to nurse +her, and to weep over her. + +'Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,' said Sleary. + +'O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You +are gone to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for +my sake, I am sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be +without me, poor, poor father, until you come back!' It was so +pathetic to hear her saying many things of this kind, with her face +turned upward, and her arms stretched out as if she were trying to +stop his departing shadow and embrace it, that no one spoke a word +until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the case in hand. + +'Now, good people all,' said he, 'this is wanton waste of time. +Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you +like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what's your name! +Your father has absconded - deserted you - and you mustn't expect +to see him again as long as you live.' + +They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that +advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being +impressed by the speaker's strong common sense, they took it in +extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered 'Shame!' and the women +'Brute!' and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following +hint, apart to Mr. Bounderby. + +'I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith +that you had better cut it thort, and drop it. They're a very good +natur'd people, my people, but they're accuthtomed to be quick in +their movementh; and if you don't act upon my advithe, I'm damned +if I don't believe they'll pith you out o' winder.' + +Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. +Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently practical exposition +of the subject. + +'It is of no moment,' said he, 'whether this person is to be +expected back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and +there is no present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is +agreed on all hands.' + +'Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to that!' From Sleary. + +'Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor +girl, Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, +in consequence of there being practical objections, into which I +need not enter, to the reception there of the children of persons +so employed, am prepared in these altered circumstances to make a +proposal. I am willing to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate +you, and provide for you. The only condition (over and above your +good behaviour) I make is, that you decide now, at once, whether to +accompany me or remain here. Also, that if you accompany me now, +it is understood that you communicate no more with any of your +friends who are here present. These observations comprise the +whole of the case.' + +'At the thame time,' said Sleary, 'I mutht put in my word, Thquire, +tho that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. If you +like, Thethilia, to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work +and you know your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you're a +lying at prethent, would be a mother to you, and Joth'phine would +be a thithter to you. I don't pretend to be of the angel breed +myself, and I don't thay but what, when you mith'd your tip, you'd +find me cut up rough, and thwear an oath or two at you. But what I +thay, Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad tempered, I never did +a horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at him went, and that +I don't expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of life, with a +rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, Thquire, and I have thed my +thay.' + +The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who +received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then +remarked: + +'The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of +influencing your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have +a sound practical education, and that even your father himself +(from what I understand) appears, on your behalf, to have known and +felt that much.' + +The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her +wild crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned +her face full upon her patron. The whole company perceived the +force of the change, and drew a long breath together, that plainly +said, 'she will go!' + +'Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,' Mr. Gradgrind cautioned +her; 'I say no more. Be sure you know your own mind!' + +'When father comes back,' cried the girl, bursting into tears again +after a minute's silence, 'how will he ever find me if I go away!' + +'You may be quite at ease,' said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked +out the whole matter like a sum: 'you may be quite at ease, Jupe, +on that score. In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find +out Mr. - ' + +'Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed of it. Known all +over England, and alwayth paythe ith way.' + +'Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you +went. I should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and +he would have no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas +Gradgrind of Coketown. I am well known.' + +'Well known,' assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye. 'You're +one of the thort, Thquire, that keepth a prethiouth thight of money +out of the houthe. But never mind that at prethent.' + +There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her +hands before her face, 'Oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, +and let me go away before I break my heart!' + +The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together - +it was soon done, for they were not many - and to pack them in a +basket which had often travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time +upon the ground, still sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. +Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby stood near the door, ready to +take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the middle of the room, with +the male members of the company about him, exactly as he would have +stood in the centre of the ring during his daughter Josephine's +performance. He wanted nothing but his whip. + +The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and +smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. Then they pressed +about her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and +embracing her: and brought the children to take leave of her; and +were a tender-hearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether. + +'Now, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'If you are quite determined, +come!' + +But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company +yet, and every one of them had to unfold his arms (for they all +assumed the professional attitude when they found themselves near +Sleary), and give her a parting kiss - Master Kidderminster +excepted, in whose young nature there was an original flavour of +the misanthrope, who was also known to have harboured matrimonial +views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary was reserved until the +last. Opening his arms wide he took her by both her hands, and +would have sprung her up and down, after the riding-master manner +of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid +act; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before +him crying. + +'Good-bye, my dear!' said Sleary. 'You'll make your fortun, I +hope, and none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I'll pound +it. I with your father hadn't taken hith dog with him; ith a ill- +conwenienth to have the dog out of the billth. But on thecond +thoughth, he wouldn't have performed without hith mathter, tho ith +ath broad ath ith long!' + +With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed +his company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and +handed her to Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse. + +'There the ith, Thquire,' he said, sweeping her with a professional +glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, 'and the'll do +you juthtithe. Good-bye, Thethilia!' + +'Good-bye, Cecilia!' 'Good-bye, Sissy!' 'God bless you, dear!' +In a variety of voices from all the room. + +But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils +in her bosom, and he now interposed with 'Leave the bottle, my +dear; ith large to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give +it to me!' + +'No, no!' she said, in another burst of tears. 'Oh, no! Pray let +me keep it for father till he comes back! He will want it when he +comes back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me +for it. I must keep it for him, if you please!' + +'Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell, +Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth +of your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. +But if, when you're grown up and married and well off, you come +upon any horthe-riding ever, don't be hard upon it, don't be croth +with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do +wurth. People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,' continued +Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking; 'they +can't be alwayth a working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a +learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. I've got my +living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I +conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I +thay to you, Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!' + +The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and +the fixed eye of Philosophy - and its rolling eye, too - soon lost +the three figures and the basket in the darkness of the street. + + + +CHAPTER VII - MRS. SPARSIT + + + +MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his +establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs. +Sparsit was this lady's name; and she was a prominent figure in +attendance on Mr. Bounderby's car, as it rolled along in triumph +with the Bully of humility inside. + +For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly +connected. She had a great aunt living in these very times called +Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, +had been by the mother's side what Mrs. Sparsit still called 'a +Powler.' Strangers of limited information and dull apprehension +were sometimes observed not to know what a Powler was, and even to +appear uncertain whether it might be a business, or a political +party, or a profession of faith. The better class of minds, +however, did not need to be informed that the Powlers were an +ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back +that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves - +which they had rather frequently done, as respected horse-flesh, +blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent +Debtors' Court. + +The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother's side a Powler, married +this lady, being by the father's side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers +(an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for +butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get +out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period +when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender +body, weakly supported on two long slim props, and surmounted by no +head worth mentioning. He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, +but owed it all before he came into it, and spent it twice over +immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at twenty-four (the +scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he did not +leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after the +honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen +years older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only +relative, Lady Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and +partly to maintain herself, went out at a salary. And here she was +now, in her elderly days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and +the dense black eyebrows which had captivated Sparsit, making Mr. +Bounderby's tea as he took his breakfast. + +If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive +Princess whom he took about as a feature in his state-processions, +he could not have made a greater flourish with her than he +habitually did. Just as it belonged to his boastfulness to +depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to it to exalt Mrs. +Sparsit's. In the measure that he would not allow his own youth to +have been attended by a single favourable circumstance, he +brightened Mrs. Sparsit's juvenile career with every possible +advantage, and showered waggon-loads of early roses all over that +lady's path. 'And yet, sir,' he would say, 'how does it turn out +after all? Why here she is at a hundred a year (I give her a +hundred, which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping the house +of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown!' + +Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third +parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with +considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating +attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises but +stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral infection of +clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up +at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a rampant way, of +Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the Union-Jack, +Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, An +Englishman's house is his castle, Church and State, and God save +the Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) +as an orator of this kind brought into his peroration, + + +'Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, +A breath can make them, as a breath has made,' + + +- it was, for certain, more or less understood among the company +that he had heard of Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Mr. Bounderby,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'you are unusually slow, sir, +with your breakfast this morning.' + +'Why, ma'am,' he returned, 'I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind's +whim;' Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of speaking - +as if somebody were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense +sums to say Thomas, and he wouldn't; 'Tom Gradgrind's whim, ma'am, +of bringing up the tumbling-girl.' + +'The girl is now waiting to know,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'whether she +is to go straight to the school, or up to the Lodge.' + +'She must wait, ma'am,' answered Bounderby, 'till I know myself. +We shall have Tom Gradgrind down here presently, I suppose. If he +should wish her to remain here a day or two longer, of course she +can, ma'am.' + +'Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. Bounderby.' + +'I told him I would give her a shake-down here, last night, in +order that he might sleep on it before he decided to let her have +any association with Louisa.' + +'Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful of you!' Mrs. Sparsit's +Coriolanian nose underwent a slight expansion of the nostrils, and +her black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea. + +'It's tolerably clear to me,' said Bounderby, 'that the little puss +can get small good out of such companionship.' + +'Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby?' + +'Yes, ma'am, I'm speaking of Louisa.' + +'Your observation being limited to "little puss,"' said Mrs. +Sparsit, 'and there being two little girls in question, I did not +know which might be indicated by that expression.' + +'Louisa,' repeated Mr. Bounderby. 'Louisa, Louisa.' + +'You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.' Mrs. Sparsit took a +little more tea; and, as she bent her again contracted eyebrows +over her steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical +countenance were invoking the infernal gods. + +'If you had said I was another father to Tom - young Tom, I mean, +not my friend Tom Gradgrind - you might have been nearer the mark. +I am going to take young Tom into my office. Going to have him +under my wing, ma'am.' + +'Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?' Mrs. Spirit's +'sir,' in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather +exacting consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him. + +'I'm not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational +cramming before then,' said Bounderby. 'By the Lord Harry, he'll +have enough of it, first and last! He'd open his eyes, that boy +would, if he knew how empty of learning my young maw was, at his +time of life.' Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he had +heard of it often enough. 'But it's extraordinary the difficulty I +have on scores of such subjects, in speaking to any one on equal +terms. Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this morning +about tumblers. Why, what do you know about tumblers? At the time +when, to have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets, would have +been a godsend to me, a prize in the lottery to me, you were at the +Italian Opera. You were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma'am, in +white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn't a penny +to buy a link to light you.' + +'I certainly, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely +mournful, 'was familiar with the Italian Opera at a very early +age.' + +'Egad, ma'am, so was I,' said Bounderby, ' - with the wrong side of +it. A hard bed the pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure +you. People like you, ma'am, accustomed from infancy to lie on +Down feathers, have no idea how hard a paving-stone is, without +trying it. No, no, it's of no use my talking to you about +tumblers. I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West End of +London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies and honourables.' + +'I trust, sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, 'it +is not necessary that you should do anything of that kind. I hope +I have learnt how to accommodate myself to the changes of life. If +I have acquired an interest in hearing of your instructive +experiences, and can scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit +for that, since I believe it is a general sentiment.' + +'Well, ma'am,' said her patron, 'perhaps some people may be pleased +to say that they do like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what +Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown, has gone through. But you must +confess that you were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, +ma'am, you know you were born in the lap of luxury.' + +'I do not, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit with a shake of her head, +'deny it.' + +Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and stand with his +back to the fire, looking at her; she was such an enhancement of +his position. + +'And you were in crack society. Devilish high society,' he said, +warming his legs. + +'It is true, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affectation of +humility the very opposite of his, and therefore in no danger of +jostling it. + +'You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of it,' said Mr. +Bounderby. + +'Yes, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of social widowhood +upon her. 'It is unquestionably true.' + +Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally embraced his +legs in his great satisfaction and laughed aloud. Mr. and Miss +Gradgrind being then announced, he received the former with a shake +of the hand, and the latter with a kiss. + +'Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?' asked Mr. Gradgrind. + +Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, she curtseyed to +Mr. Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; +but in her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing +this, the blustrous Bounderby had the following remarks to make: + +'Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that lady by the +teapot, is Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as mistress of this house, +and she is a highly connected lady. Consequently, if ever you come +again into any room in this house, you will make a short stay in it +if you don't behave towards that lady in your most respectful +manner. Now, I don't care a button what you do to me, because I +don't affect to be anybody. So far from having high connections I +have no connections at all, and I come of the scum of the earth. +But towards that lady, I do care what you do; and you shall do what +is deferential and respectful, or you shall not come here.' + +'I hope, Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, +'that this was merely an oversight.' + +'My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,' said Bounderby, +'that this was merely an oversight. Very likely. However, as you +are aware, ma'am, I don't allow of even oversights towards you.' + +'You are very good indeed, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her +head with her State humility. 'It is not worth speaking of.' + +Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself with +tears in her eyes, was now waved over by the master of the house to +Mr. Gradgrind. She stood looking intently at him, and Louisa stood +coldly by, with her eyes upon the ground, while he proceeded thus: + +'Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and, when +you are not in attendance at the school, to employ you about Mrs. +Gradgrind, who is rather an invalid. I have explained to Miss +Louisa - this is Miss Louisa - the miserable but natural end of +your late career; and you are to expressly understand that the +whole of that subject is past, and is not to be referred to any +more. From this time you begin your history. You are, at present, +ignorant, I know.' + +'Yes, sir, very,' she answered, curtseying. + +'I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly +educated; and you will be a living proof to all who come into +communication with you, of the advantages of the training you will +receive. You will be reclaimed and formed. You have been in the +habit now of reading to your father, and those people I found you +among, I dare say?' said Mr. Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him +before he said so, and dropping his voice. + +'Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, +when Merrylegs was always there.' + +'Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing +frown. 'I don't ask about him. I understand you to have been in +the habit of reading to your father?' + +'O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the happiest - O, of +all the happy times we had together, sir!' + +It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked at +her. + +'And what,' asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, 'did you +read to your father, Jupe?' + +'About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the +Genies,' she sobbed out; 'and about - ' + +'Hush!' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that is enough. Never breathe a word +of such destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby, this is a case +for rigid training, and I shall observe it with interest.' + +'Well,' returned Mr. Bounderby, 'I have given you my opinion +already, and I shouldn't do as you do. But, very well, very well. +Since you are bent upon it, very well!' + +So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them +to Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, good or +bad. And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. +Sparsit got behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that +retreat, all the evening. + + + +CHAPTER VIII - NEVER WONDER + + + +LET us strike the key-note again, before pursuing the tune. + +When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard +to begin a conversation with her brother one day, by saying 'Tom, I +wonder' - upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, +stepped forth into the light and said, 'Louisa, never wonder!' + +Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of +educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the +sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, +subtraction, multiplication, and division, settle everything +somehow, and never wonder. Bring to me, says M'Choakumchild, +yonder baby just able to walk, and I will engage that it shall +never wonder. + +Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there happened to +be in Coketown a considerable population of babies who had been +walking against time towards the infinite world, twenty, thirty, +forty, fifty years and more. These portentous infants being +alarming creatures to stalk about in any human society, the +eighteen denominations incessantly scratched one another's faces +and pulled one another's hair by way of agreeing on the steps to be +taken for their improvement - which they never did; a surprising +circumstance, when the happy adaptation of the means to the end is +considered. Still, although they differed in every other +particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially +inconceivable), they were pretty well united on the point that +these unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body number one, said +they must take everything on trust. Body number two, said they +must take everything on political economy. Body number three, +wrote leaden little books for them, showing how the good grown-up +baby invariably got to the Savings-bank, and the bad grown-up baby +invariably got transported. Body number four, under dreary +pretences of being droll (when it was very melancholy indeed), made +the shallowest pretences of concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into +which it was the duty of these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. +But, all the bodies agreed that they were never to wonder. + +There was a library in Coketown, to which general access was easy. +Mr. Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what the people read +in this library: a point whereon little rivers of tabular +statements periodically flowed into the howling ocean of tabular +statements, which no diver ever got to any depth in and came up +sane. It was a disheartening circumstance, but a melancholy fact, +that even these readers persisted in wondering. They wondered +about human nature, human passions, human hopes and fears, the +struggles, triumphs and defeats, the cares and joys and sorrows, +the lives and deaths of common men and women! They sometimes, +after fifteen hours' work, sat down to read mere fables about men +and women, more or less like themselves, and about children, more +or less like their own. They took De Foe to their bosoms, instead +of Euclid, and seemed to be on the whole more comforted by +Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mr. Gradgrind was for ever working, in +print and out of print, at this eccentric sum, and he never could +make out how it yielded this unaccountable product. + +'I am sick of my life, Loo. I, hate it altogether, and I hate +everybody except you,' said the unnatural young Thomas Gradgrind in +the hair-cutting chamber at twilight. + +'You don't hate Sissy, Tom?' + +'I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And she hates me,' said +Tom, moodily. + +'No, she does not, Tom, I am sure!' + +'She must,' said Tom. 'She must just hate and detest the whole +set-out of us. They'll bother her head off, I think, before they +have done with her. Already she's getting as pale as wax, and as +heavy as - I am.' + +Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a chair +before the fire, with his arms on the back, and his sulky face on +his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner by the fireside, now +looking at him, now looking at the bright sparks as they dropped +upon the hearth. + +'As to me,' said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner of ways with his +sulky hands, 'I am a Donkey, that's what I am. I am as obstinate +as one, I am more stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, +and I should like to kick like one.' + +'Not me, I hope, Tom?' + +'No, Loo; I wouldn't hurt you. I made an exception of you at +first. I don't know what this - jolly old - Jaundiced Jail,' Tom +had paused to find a sufficiently complimentary and expressive name +for the parental roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a moment +by the strong alliteration of this one, 'would be without you.' + +'Indeed, Tom? Do you really and truly say so?' + +'Why, of course I do. What's the use of talking about it!' +returned Tom, chafing his face on his coat-sleeve, as if to mortify +his flesh, and have it in unison with his spirit. + +'Because, Tom,' said his sister, after silently watching the sparks +awhile, 'as I get older, and nearer growing up, I often sit +wondering here, and think how unfortunate it is for me that I can't +reconcile you to home better than I am able to do. I don't know +what other girls know. I can't play to you, or sing to you. I +can't talk to you so as to lighten your mind, for I never see any +amusing sights or read any amusing books that it would be a +pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when you are tired.' + +'Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that respect; and I am +a Mule too, which you're not. If father was determined to make me +either a Prig or a Mule, and I am not a Prig, why, it stands to +reason, I must be a Mule. And so I am,' said Tom, desperately. + +'It's a great pity,' said Louisa, after another pause, and speaking +thoughtfully out of her dark corner: 'it's a great pity, Tom. +It's very unfortunate for both of us.' + +'Oh! You,' said Tom; 'you are a girl, Loo, and a girl comes out of +it better than a boy does. I don't miss anything in you. You are +the only pleasure I have - you can brighten even this place - and +you can always lead me as you like.' + +'You are a dear brother, Tom; and while you think I can do such +things, I don't so much mind knowing better. Though I do know +better, Tom, and am very sorry for it.' She came and kissed him, +and went back into her corner again. + +'I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about,' said +Tom, spitefully setting his teeth, 'and all the Figures, and all +the people who found them out: and I wish I could put a thousand +barrels of gunpowder under them, and blow them all up together! +However, when I go to live with old Bounderby, I'll have my +revenge.' + +'Your revenge, Tom?' + +'I mean, I'll enjoy myself a little, and go about and see +something, and hear something. I'll recompense myself for the way +in which I have been brought up.' + +'But don't disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. Bounderby +thinks as father thinks, and is a great deal rougher, and not half +so kind.' + +'Oh!' said Tom, laughing; 'I don't mind that. I shall very well +know how to manage and smooth old Bounderby!' + +Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the high +presses in the room were all blended together on the wall and on +the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were overhung by a dark +cavern. Or, a fanciful imagination - if such treason could have +been there - might have made it out to be the shadow of their +subject, and of its lowering association with their future. + +'What is your great mode of smoothing and managing, Tom? Is it a +secret?' + +'Oh!' said Tom, 'if it is a secret, it's not far off. It's you. +You are his little pet, you are his favourite; he'll do anything +for you. When he says to me what I don't like, I shall say to him, +"My sister Loo will be hurt and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She +always used to tell me she was sure you would be easier with me +than this." That'll bring him about, or nothing will.' + +After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, Tom +wearily relapsed into the present time, and twined himself yawning +round and about the rails of his chair, and rumpled his head more +and more, until he suddenly looked up, and asked: + +'Have you gone to sleep, Loo?' + +'No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.' + +'You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I could find,' +said Tom. 'Another of the advantages, I suppose, of being a girl.' + +'Tom,' enquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious tone, as if +she were reading what she asked in the fire, and it was not quite +plainly written there, 'do you look forward with any satisfaction +to this change to Mr. Bounderby's?' + +'Why, there's one thing to be said of it,' returned Tom, pushing +his chair from him, and standing up; 'it will be getting away from +home.' + +'There is one thing to be said of it,' Louisa repeated in her +former curious tone; 'it will be getting away from home. Yes.' + +'Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave you, Loo, +and to leave you here. But I must go, you know, whether I like it +or not; and I had better go where I can take with me some advantage +of your influence, than where I should lose it altogether. Don't +you see?' + +'Yes, Tom.' + +The answer was so long in coming, though there was no indecision in +it, that Tom went and leaned on the back of her chair, to +contemplate the fire which so engrossed her, from her point of +view, and see what he could make of it. + +'Except that it is a fire,' said Tom, 'it looks to me as stupid and +blank as everything else looks. What do you see in it? Not a +circus?' + +'I don't see anything in it, Tom, particularly. But since I have +been looking at it, I have been wondering about you and me, grown +up.' + +'Wondering again!' said Tom. + +'I have such unmanageable thoughts,' returned his sister, 'that +they will wonder.' + +'Then I beg of you, Louisa,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, who had opened +the door without being heard, 'to do nothing of that description, +for goodness' sake, you inconsiderate girl, or I shall never hear +the last of it from your father. And, Thomas, it is really +shameful, with my poor head continually wearing me out, that a boy +brought up as you have been, and whose education has cost what +yours has, should be found encouraging his sister to wonder, when +he knows his father has expressly said that she is not to do it.' + +Louisa denied Tom's participation in the offence; but her mother +stopped her with the conclusive answer, 'Louisa, don't tell me, in +my state of health; for unless you had been encouraged, it is +morally and physically impossible that you could have done it.' + +'I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the red +sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. It made +me think, after all, how short my life would be, and how little I +could hope to do in it.' + +'Nonsense!' said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost energetic. +'Nonsense! Don't stand there and tell me such stuff, Louisa, to my +face, when you know very well that if it was ever to reach your +father's ears I should never hear the last of it. After all the +trouble that has been taken with you! After the lectures you have +attended, and the experiments you have seen! After I have heard +you myself, when the whole of my right side has been benumbed, +going on with your master about combustion, and calcination, and +calorification, and I may say every kind of ation that could drive +a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd way +about sparks and ashes! I wish,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking +a chair, and discharging her strongest point before succumbing +under these mere shadows of facts, 'yes, I really do wish that I +had never had a family, and then you would have known what it was +to do without me!' + + + +CHAPTER IX - SISSY'S PROGRESS + + + +SISSY JUPE had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M'Choakumchild +and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the +first months of her probation, to run away. It hailed facts all +day long so very hard, and life in general was opened to her as +such a closely ruled ciphering-book, that assuredly she would have +run away, but for only one restraint. + +It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result of +no arithmetical process, was self-imposed in defiance of all +calculation, and went dead against any table of probabilities that +any Actuary would have drawn up from the premises. The girl +believed that her father had not deserted her; she lived in the +hope that he would come back, and in the faith that he would be +made the happier by her remaining where she was. + +The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, +rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on a sound arithmetical +basis, that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. +Gradgrind with pity. Yet, what was to be done? M'Choakumchild +reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once +possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest +conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that she was +extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful +incident happened to be connected therewith; that she would burst +into tears on being required (by the mental process) immediately to +name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at +fourteen-pence halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school, +as low could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the +elements of Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set +right by a prattler three feet high, for returning to the question, +'What is the first principle of this science?' the absurd answer, +'To do unto others as I would that they should do unto me.' + +Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very +bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill +of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and +tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe 'must be kept to it.' So +Jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser. + +'It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!' she said, one +night, when Louisa had endeavoured to make her perplexities for +next day something clearer to her. + +'Do you think so?' + +'I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is difficult to me +now, would be so easy then.' + +'You might not be the better for it, Sissy.' + +Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, 'I should not be the +worse, Miss Louisa.' To which Miss Louisa answered, 'I don't know +that.' + +There had been so little communication between these two - both +because life at Stone Lodge went monotonously round like a piece of +machinery which discouraged human interference, and because of the +prohibition relative to Sissy's past career - that they were still +almost strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed +to Louisa's face, was uncertain whether to say more or to remain +silent. + +'You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant with her than +I can ever be,' Louisa resumed. 'You are pleasanter to yourself, +than I am to myself.' + +'But, if you please, Miss Louisa,' Sissy pleaded, 'I am - O so +stupid!' + +Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her she would be +wiser by-and-by. + +'You don't know,' said Sissy, half crying, 'what a stupid girl I +am. All through school hours I make mistakes. Mr. and Mrs. +M'Choakumchild call me up, over and over again, regularly to make +mistakes. I can't help them. They seem to come natural to me.' + +'Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild never make any mistakes themselves, I +suppose, Sissy?' + +'O no!' she eagerly returned. 'They know everything.' + +'Tell me some of your mistakes.' + +'I am almost ashamed,' said Sissy, with reluctance. 'But to-day, +for instance, Mr. M'Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural +Prosperity.' + +'National, I think it must have been,' observed Louisa. + +'Yes, it was. - But isn't it the same?' she timidly asked. + +'You had better say, National, as he said so,' returned Louisa, +with her dry reserve. + +'National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a +Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. +Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn't this a +prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state?' + +'What did you say?' asked Louisa. + +'Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know +whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a +thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and +whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it. +It was not in the figures at all,' said Sissy, wiping her eyes. + +'That was a great mistake of yours,' observed Louisa. + +'Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M'Choakumchild +said he would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an +immense town, and in it there are a million of inhabitants, and +only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the +course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my +remark was - for I couldn't think of a better one - that I thought +it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the +others were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong, +too.' + +'Of course it was.' + +'Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he +said, Here are the stutterings - ' + +'Statistics,' said Louisa. + +'Yes, Miss Louisa - they always remind me of stutterings, and +that's another of my mistakes - of accidents upon the sea. And I +find (Mr. M'Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred +thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred +of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is the percentage? +And I said, Miss;' here Sissy fairly sobbed as confessing with +extreme contrition to her greatest error; 'I said it was nothing.' + +'Nothing, Sissy?' + +'Nothing, Miss - to the relations and friends of the people who +were killed. I shall never learn,' said Sissy. 'And the worst of +all is, that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, +and although I am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, I +am afraid I don't like it.' + +Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it drooped +abashed before her, until it was raised again to glance at her +face. Then she asked: + +'Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be +well taught too, Sissy?' + +Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her sense +that they were entering on forbidden ground, that Louisa added, 'No +one hears us; and if any one did, I am sure no harm could be found +in such an innocent question.' + +'No, Miss Louisa,' answered Sissy, upon this encouragement, shaking +her head; 'father knows very little indeed. It's as much as he can +do to write; and it's more than people in general can do to read +his writing. Though it's plain to me.' + +'Your mother?' + +'Father says she was quite a scholar. She died when I was born. +She was;' Sissy made the terrible communication nervously; 'she was +a dancer.' + +'Did your father love her?' Louisa asked these questions with a +strong, wild, wandering interest peculiar to her; an interest gone +astray like a banished creature, and hiding in solitary places. + +'O yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father loved me, first, for her +sake. He carried me about with him when I was quite a baby. We +have never been asunder from that time.' + +'Yet he leaves you now, Sissy?' + +'Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do; nobody knows +him as I do. When he left me for my good - he never would have +left me for his own - I know he was almost broken-hearted with the +trial. He will not be happy for a single minute, till he comes +back.' + +'Tell me more about him,' said Louisa, 'I will never ask you again. +Where did you live?' + +'We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place to live in. +Father's a;' Sissy whispered the awful word, 'a clown.' + +'To make the people laugh?' said Louisa, with a nod of +intelligence. + +'Yes. But they wouldn't laugh sometimes, and then father cried. +Lately, they very often wouldn't laugh, and he used to come home +despairing. Father's not like most. Those who didn't know him as +well as I do, and didn't love him as dearly as I do, might believe +he was not quite right. Sometimes they played tricks upon him; but +they never knew how he felt them, and shrunk up, when he was alone +with me. He was far, far timider than they thought!' + +'And you were his comfort through everything?' + +She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. 'I hope so, and +father said I was. It was because he grew so scared and trembling, +and because he felt himself to be a poor, weak, ignorant, helpless +man (those used to be his words), that he wanted me so much to know +a great deal, and be different from him. I used to read to him to +cheer his courage, and he was very fond of that. They were wrong +books - I am never to speak of them here - but we didn't know there +was any harm in them.' + +'And he liked them?' said Louisa, with a searching gaze on Sissy +all this time. + +'O very much! They kept him, many times, from what did him real +harm. And often and often of a night, he used to forget all his +troubles in wondering whether the Sultan would let the lady go on +with the story, or would have her head cut off before it was +finished.' + +'And your father was always kind? To the last?' asked Louisa +contravening the great principle, and wondering very much. + +'Always, always!' returned Sissy, clasping her hands. 'Kinder and +kinder than I can tell. He was angry only one night, and that was +not to me, but Merrylegs. Merrylegs;' she whispered the awful +fact; 'is his performing dog.' + +'Why was he angry with the dog?' Louisa demanded. + +'Father, soon after they came home from performing, told Merrylegs +to jump up on the backs of the two chairs and stand across them - +which is one of his tricks. He looked at father, and didn't do it +at once. Everything of father's had gone wrong that night, and he +hadn't pleased the public at all. He cried out that the very dog +knew he was failing, and had no compassion on him. Then he beat +the dog, and I was frightened, and said, "Father, father! Pray +don't hurt the creature who is so fond of you! O Heaven forgive +you, father, stop!" And he stopped, and the dog was bloody, and +father lay down crying on the floor with the dog in his arms, and +the dog licked his face.' + +Louisa saw that she was sobbing; and going to her, kissed her, took +her hand, and sat down beside her. + +'Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. Now that I +have asked you so much, tell me the end. The blame, if there is +any blame, is mine, not yours.' + +'Dear Miss Louisa,' said Sissy, covering her eyes, and sobbing yet; +'I came home from the school that afternoon, and found poor father +just come home too, from the booth. And he sat rocking himself +over the fire, as if he was in pain. And I said, "Have you hurt +yourself, father?" (as he did sometimes, like they all did), and he +said, "A little, my darling." And when I came to stoop down and +look up at his face, I saw that he was crying. The more I spoke to +him, the more he hid his face; and at first he shook all over, and +said nothing but "My darling;" and "My love!"' + +Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two with a coolness +not particularly savouring of interest in anything but himself, and +not much of that at present. + +'I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,' observed his sister. +'You have no occasion to go away; but don't interrupt us for a +moment, Tom dear.' + +'Oh! very well!' returned Tom. 'Only father has brought old +Bounderby home, and I want you to come into the drawing-room. +Because if you come, there's a good chance of old Bounderby's +asking me to dinner; and if you don't, there's none.' + +'I'll come directly.' + +'I'll wait for you,' said Tom, 'to make sure.' + +Sissy resumed in a lower voice. 'At last poor father said that he +had given no satisfaction again, and never did give any +satisfaction now, and that he was a shame and disgrace, and I +should have done better without him all along. I said all the +affectionate things to him that came into my heart, and presently +he was quiet and I sat down by him, and told him all about the +school and everything that had been said and done there. When I +had no more left to tell, he put his arms round my neck, and kissed +me a great many times. Then he asked me to fetch some of the stuff +he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it at the best +place, which was at the other end of town from there; and then, +after kissing me again, he let me go. When I had gone down-stairs, +I turned back that I might be a little bit more company to him yet, +and looked in at the door, and said, "Father dear, shall I take +Merrylegs?" Father shook his head and said, "No, Sissy, no; take +nothing that's known to be mine, my darling;" and I left him +sitting by the fire. Then the thought must have come upon him, +poor, poor father! of going away to try something for my sake; for +when I came back, he was gone.' + +'I say! Look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!' Tom remonstrated. + +'There's no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I keep the nine oils ready +for him, and I know he will come back. Every letter that I see in +Mr. Gradgrind's hand takes my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I +think it comes from father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. Mr. +Sleary promised to write as soon as ever father should be heard of, +and I trust to him to keep his word.' + +'Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!' said Tom, with an impatient +whistle. 'He'll be off if you don't look sharp!' + +After this, whenever Sissy dropped a curtsey to Mr. Gradgrind in +the presence of his family, and said in a faltering way, 'I beg +your pardon, sir, for being troublesome - but - have you had any +letter yet about me?' Louisa would suspend the occupation of the +moment, whatever it was, and look for the reply as earnestly as +Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind regularly answered, 'No, Jupe, +nothing of the sort,' the trembling of Sissy's lip would be +repeated in Louisa's face, and her eyes would follow Sissy with +compassion to the door. Mr. Gradgrind usually improved these +occasions by remarking, when she was gone, that if Jupe had been +properly trained from an early age she would have remonstrated to +herself on sound principles the baselessness of these fantastic +hopes. Yet it did seem (though not to him, for he saw nothing of +it) as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact. + +This observation must be limited exclusively to his daughter. As +to Tom, he was becoming that not unprecedented triumph of +calculation which is usually at work on number one. As to Mrs. +Gradgrind, if she said anything on the subject, she would come a +little way out of her wrappers, like a feminine dormouse, and say: + +'Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and worried by +that girl Jupe's so perseveringly asking, over and over again, +about her tiresome letters! Upon my word and honour I seem to be +fated, and destined, and ordained, to live in the midst of things +that I am never to hear the last of. It really is a most +extraordinary circumstance that it appears as if I never was to +hear the last of anything!' + +At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind's eye would fall upon her; and +under the influence of that wintry piece of fact, she would become +torpid again. + + + +CHAPTER X - STEPHEN BLACKPOOL + + + +I ENTERTAIN a weak idea that the English people are as hard-worked +as any people upon whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this +ridiculous idiosyncrasy, as a reason why I would give them a little +more play. + +In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost +fortifications of that ugly citadel, where Nature was as strongly +bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in; at the heart +of the labyrinth of narrow courts upon courts, and close streets +upon streets, which had come into existence piecemeal, every piece +in a violent hurry for some one man's purpose, and the whole an +unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, and pressing one +another to death; in the last close nook of this great exhausted +receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a draught, +were built in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes, as +though every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might +be expected to be born in it; among the multitude of Coketown, +generically called 'the Hands,' - a race who would have found more +favour with some people, if Providence had seen fit to make them +only hands, or, like the lower creatures of the seashore, only +hands and stomachs - lived a certain Stephen Blackpool, forty years +of age. + +Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is said that +every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have +been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody +else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed +of the same somebody else's thorns in addition to his own. He had +known, to use his words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called +Old Stephen, in a kind of rough homage to the fact. + +A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression +of face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on which +his iron-grey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed +for a particularly intelligent man in his condition. Yet he was +not. He took no place among those remarkable 'Hands,' who, piecing +together their broken intervals of leisure through many years, had +mastered difficult sciences, and acquired a knowledge of most +unlikely things. He held no station among the Hands who could make +speeches and carry on debates. Thousands of his compeers could +talk much better than he, at any time. He was a good power-loom +weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What more he was, or what +else he had in him, if anything, let him show for himself. + +The lights in the great factories, which looked, when they were +illuminated, like Fairy palaces - or the travellers by express- +train said so - were all extinguished; and the bells had rung for +knocking off for the night, and had ceased again; and the Hands, +men and women, boy and girl, were clattering home. Old Stephen was +standing in the street, with the old sensation upon him which the +stoppage of the machinery always produced - the sensation of its +having worked and stopped in his own head. + +'Yet I don't see Rachael, still!' said he. + +It was a wet night, and many groups of young women passed him, with +their shawls drawn over their bare heads and held close under their +chins to keep the rain out. He knew Rachael well, for a glance at +any one of these groups was sufficient to show him that she was not +there. At last, there were no more to come; and then he turned +away, saying in a tone of disappointment, 'Why, then, ha' missed +her!' + +But, he had not gone the length of three streets, when he saw +another of the shawled figures in advance of him, at which he +looked so keenly that perhaps its mere shadow indistinctly +reflected on the wet pavement - if he could have seen it without +the figure itself moving along from lamp to lamp, brightening and +fading as it went - would have been enough to tell him who was +there. Making his pace at once much quicker and much softer, he +darted on until he was very near this figure, then fell into his +former walk, and called 'Rachael!' + +She turned, being then in the brightness of a lamp; and raising her +hood a little, showed a quiet oval face, dark and rather delicate, +irradiated by a pair of very gentle eyes, and further set off by +the perfect order of her shining black hair. It was not a face in +its first bloom; she was a woman five and thirty years of age. + +'Ah, lad! 'Tis thou?' When she had said this, with a smile which +would have been quite expressed, though nothing of her had been +seen but her pleasant eyes, she replaced her hood again, and they +went on together. + +'I thought thou wast ahind me, Rachael?' + +'No.' + +'Early t'night, lass?' + +''Times I'm a little early, Stephen! 'times a little late. I'm +never to be counted on, going home.' + +'Nor going t'other way, neither, 't seems to me, Rachael?' + +'No, Stephen.' + +He looked at her with some disappointment in his face, but with a +respectful and patient conviction that she must be right in +whatever she did. The expression was not lost upon her; she laid +her hand lightly on his arm a moment as if to thank him for it. + +'We are such true friends, lad, and such old friends, and getting +to be such old folk, now.' + +'No, Rachael, thou'rt as young as ever thou wast.' + +'One of us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephen, without 't +other getting so too, both being alive,' she answered, laughing; +'but, anyways, we're such old friends, and t' hide a word of honest +truth fro' one another would be a sin and a pity. 'Tis better not +to walk too much together. 'Times, yes! 'Twould be hard, indeed, +if 'twas not to be at all,' she said, with a cheerfulness she +sought to communicate to him. + +''Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.' + +'Try to think not; and 'twill seem better.' + +'I've tried a long time, and 'ta'nt got better. But thou'rt right; +'t might mak fok talk, even of thee. Thou hast been that to me, +Rachael, through so many year: thou hast done me so much good, and +heartened of me in that cheering way, that thy word is a law to me. +Ah, lass, and a bright good law! Better than some real ones.' + +'Never fret about them, Stephen,' she answered quickly, and not +without an anxious glance at his face. 'Let the laws be.' + +'Yes,' he said, with a slow nod or two. 'Let 'em be. Let +everything be. Let all sorts alone. 'Tis a muddle, and that's +aw.' + +'Always a muddle?' said Rachael, with another gentle touch upon his +arm, as if to recall him out of the thoughtfulness, in which he was +biting the long ends of his loose neckerchief as he walked along. +The touch had its instantaneous effect. He let them fall, turned a +smiling face upon her, and said, as he broke into a good-humoured +laugh, 'Ay, Rachael, lass, awlus a muddle. That's where I stick. +I come to the muddle many times and agen, and I never get beyond +it.' + +They had walked some distance, and were near their own homes. The +woman's was the first reached. It was in one of the many small +streets for which the favourite undertaker (who turned a handsome +sum out of the one poor ghastly pomp of the neighbourhood) kept a +black ladder, in order that those who had done their daily groping +up and down the narrow stairs might slide out of this working world +by the windows. She stopped at the corner, and putting her hand in +his, wished him good night. + +'Good night, dear lass; good night!' + +She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly step, down the +dark street, and he stood looking after her until she turned into +one of the small houses. There was not a flutter of her coarse +shawl, perhaps, but had its interest in this man's eyes; not a tone +of her voice but had its echo in his innermost heart. + +When she was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward way, +glancing up sometimes at the sky, where the clouds were sailing +fast and wildly. But, they were broken now, and the rain had +ceased, and the moon shone, - looking down the high chimneys of +Coketown on the deep furnaces below, and casting Titanic shadows of +the steam-engines at rest, upon the walls where they were lodged. +The man seemed to have brightened with the night, as he went on. + +His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it was +narrower, was over a little shop. How it came to pass that any +people found it worth their while to sell or buy the wretched +little toys, mixed up in its window with cheap newspapers and pork +(there was a leg to be raffled for to-morrow-night), matters not +here. He took his end of candle from a shelf, lighted it at +another end of candle on the counter, without disturbing the +mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little room, and went +upstairs into his lodging. + +It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various +tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could be. A few +books and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture +was decent and sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted, +the room was clean. + +Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round three- +legged table standing there, he stumbled against something. As he +recoiled, looking down at it, it raised itself up into the form of +a woman in a sitting attitude. + +'Heaven's mercy, woman!' he cried, falling farther off from the +figure. 'Hast thou come back again!' + +Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to +preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself with one begrimed +hand on the floor, while the other was so purposeless in trying to +push away her tangled hair from her face, that it only blinded her +the more with the dirt upon it. A creature so foul to look at, in +her tatters, stains and splashes, but so much fouler than that in +her moral infamy, that it was a shameful thing even to see her. + +After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of herself +with the hand not necessary to her support, she got her hair away +from her eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then she sat +swaying her body to and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved +arm, which seemed intended as the accompaniment to a fit of +laughter, though her face was stolid and drowsy. + +'Eigh, lad? What, yo'r there?' Some hoarse sounds meant for this, +came mockingly out of her at last; and her head dropped forward on +her breast. + +'Back agen?' she screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that +moment said it. 'Yes! And back agen. Back agen ever and ever so +often. Back? Yes, back. Why not?' + +Roused by the unmeaning violence with which she cried it out, she +scrambled up, and stood supporting herself with her shoulders +against the wall; dangling in one hand by the string, a dunghill- +fragment of a bonnet, and trying to look scornfully at him. + +'I'll sell thee off again, and I'll sell thee off again, and I'll +sell thee off a score of times!' she cried, with something between +a furious menace and an effort at a defiant dance. 'Come awa' from +th' bed!' He was sitting on the side of it, with his face hidden +in his hands. 'Come awa! from 't. 'Tis mine, and I've a right to +t'!' + +As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, and passed - +his face still hidden - to the opposite end of the room. She threw +herself upon the bed heavily, and soon was snoring hard. He sunk +into a chair, and moved but once all that night. It was to throw a +covering over her; as if his hands were not enough to hide her, +even in the darkness. + + + +CHAPTER XI - NO WAY OUT + + + +THE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning +showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over +Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing +of bells; and all the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled +up for the day's monotony, were at their heavy exercise again. + +Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special +contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where Stephen +worked, to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at +which he laboured. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of +mind, that Art will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere, side +by side, the work of GOD and the work of man; and the former, even +though it be a troop of Hands of very small account, will gain in +dignity from the comparison. + +So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam +Power. It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what +the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National +Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, +for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into +vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of +these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the regulated +actions. There is no mystery in it; there is an unfathomable +mystery in the meanest of them, for ever. - Supposing we were to +reverse our arithmetic for material objects, and to govern these +awful unknown quantities by other means! + +The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against the +flaming lights within. The lights were turned out, and the work +went on. The rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, submissive to the +curse of all that tribe, trailed themselves upon the earth. In the +waste-yard outside, the steam from the escape pipe, the litter of +barrels and old iron, the shining heaps of coals, the ashes +everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of mist and rain. + +The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. More clattering upon +the pavements. The looms, and wheels, and Hands all out of gear +for an hour. + +Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold wet +streets, haggard and worn. He turned from his own class and his +own quarter, taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along, +towards the hill on which his principal employer lived, in a red +house with black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black +street door, up two white steps, BOUNDERBY (in letters very like +himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round brazen door-handle +underneath it, like a brazen full-stop. + +Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had expected. Would +his servant say that one of the Hands begged leave to speak to him? +Message in return, requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. +There was nothing troublesome against Stephen Blackpool; yes, he +might come in. + +Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he just knew +by sight), at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. Sparsit netting at +the fireside, in a side-saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton +stirrup. It was a part, at once of Mrs. Sparsit's dignity and +service, not to lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but +implied that in her own stately person she considered lunch a +weakness. + +'Now, Stephen,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'what's the matter with you?' + +Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one - these Hands will never do +that! Lord bless you, sir, you'll never catch them at that, if +they have been with you twenty years! - and, as a complimentary +toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, tucked his neckerchief ends into his +waistcoat. + +'Now, you know,' said Mr. Bounderby, taking some sherry, 'we have +never had any difficulty with you, and you have never been one of +the unreasonable ones. You don't expect to be set up in a coach +and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold +spoon, as a good many of 'em do!' Mr. Bounderby always represented +this to be the sole, immediate, and direct object of any Hand who +was not entirely satisfied; 'and therefore I know already that you +have not come here to make a complaint. Now, you know, I am +certain of that, beforehand.' + +'No, sir, sure I ha' not coom for nowt o' th' kind.' + +Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his +previous strong conviction. 'Very well,' he returned. 'You're a +steady Hand, and I was not mistaken. Now, let me hear what it's +all about. As it's not that, let me hear what it is. What have +you got to say? Out with it, lad!' + +Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. 'I can go, Mr. +Bounderby, if you wish it,' said that self-sacrificing lady, making +a feint of taking her foot out of the stirrup. + +Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in +suspension before swallowing it, and putting out his left hand. +Then, withdrawing his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he +said to Stephen: + +'Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high lady. You are +not to suppose because she keeps my house for me, that she hasn't +been very high up the tree - ah, up at the top of the tree! Now, +if you have got anything to say that can't be said before a born +lady, this lady will leave the room. If what you have got to say +can be said before a born lady, this lady will stay where she is.' + +'Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a born lady to +year, sin' I were born mysen',' was the reply, accompanied with a +slight flush. + +'Very well,' said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his plate, and +leaning back. 'Fire away!' + +'I ha' coom,' Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor, after +a moment's consideration, 'to ask yo yor advice. I need 't +overmuch. I were married on Eas'r Monday nineteen year sin, long +and dree. She were a young lass - pretty enow - wi' good accounts +of herseln. Well! She went bad - soon. Not along of me. Gonnows +I were not a unkind husband to her.' + +'I have heard all this before,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'She took to +drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, pawned the clothes, +and played old Gooseberry.' + +'I were patient wi' her.' + +('The more fool you, I think,' said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to +his wine-glass.) + +'I were very patient wi' her. I tried to wean her fra 't ower and +ower agen. I tried this, I tried that, I tried t'other. I ha' +gone home, many's the time, and found all vanished as I had in the +world, and her without a sense left to bless herseln lying on bare +ground. I ha' dun 't not once, not twice - twenty time!' + +Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its +affecting evidence of the suffering he had undergone. + +'From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left me. She +disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad. She coom back, she +coom back, she coom back. What could I do t' hinder her? I ha' +walked the streets nights long, ere ever I'd go home. I ha' gone +t' th' brigg, minded to fling myseln ower, and ha' no more on't. I +ha' bore that much, that I were owd when I were young.' + +Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting-needles, raised +the Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her head, as much as to say, +'The great know trouble as well as the small. Please to turn your +humble eye in My direction.' + +'I ha' paid her to keep awa' fra' me. These five year I ha' paid +her. I ha' gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I ha' lived hard +and sad, but not ashamed and fearfo' a' the minnits o' my life. +Last night, I went home. There she lay upon my har-stone! There +she is!' + +In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his distress, +he fired for the moment like a proud man. In another moment, he +stood as he had stood all the time - his usual stoop upon him; his +pondering face addressed to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious +expression on it, half shrewd, half perplexed, as if his mind were +set upon unravelling something very difficult; his hat held tight +in his left hand, which rested on his hip; his right arm, with a +rugged propriety and force of action, very earnestly emphasizing +what he said: not least so when it always paused, a little bent, +but not withdrawn, as he paused. + +'I was acquainted with all this, you know,' said Mr. Bounderby, +'except the last clause, long ago. It's a bad job; that's what it +is. You had better have been satisfied as you were, and not have +got married. However, it's too late to say that.' + +'Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years?' asked Mrs. +Sparsit. + +'You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point +of years, this unlucky job of yours?' said Mr. Bounderby. + +'Not e'en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; she were twenty +nighbut.' + +'Indeed, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great +placidity. 'I inferred, from its being so miserable a marriage, +that it was probably an unequal one in point of years.' + +Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a side-long way +that had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself with a +little more sherry. + +'Well? Why don't you go on?' he then asked, turning rather +irritably on Stephen Blackpool. + +'I ha' coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o' this woman.' +Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of +his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as +having received a moral shock. + +'What do you mean?' said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back +against the chimney-piece. 'What are you talking about? You took +her for better for worse.' + +'I mun' be ridden o' her. I cannot bear 't nommore. I ha' lived +under 't so long, for that I ha' had'n the pity and comforting +words o' th' best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I +should ha' gone battering mad.' + +'He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I +fear, sir,' observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much +dejected by the immorality of the people. + +'I do. The lady says what's right. I do. I were a coming to 't. +I ha' read i' th' papers that great folk (fair faw 'em a'! I +wishes 'em no hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worst +so fast, but that they can be set free fro' their misfortnet +marriages, an' marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that +their tempers is ill-sorted, they has rooms o' one kind an' another +in their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. We fok +ha' only one room, and we can't. When that won't do, they ha' gowd +an' other cash, an' they can say "This for yo' an' that for me," +an' they can go their separate ways. We can't. Spite o' all that, +they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I mun be +ridden o' this woman, and I want t' know how?' + +'No how,' returned Mr. Bounderby. + +'If I do her any hurt, sir, there's a law to punish me?' + +'Of course there is.' + +'If I flee from her, there's a law to punish me?' + +'Of course there is.' + +'If I marry t'oother dear lass, there's a law to punish me?' + +'Of course there is.' + +'If I was to live wi' her an' not marry her - saying such a thing +could be, which it never could or would, an' her so good - there's +a law to punish me, in every innocent child belonging to me?' + +'Of course there is.' + +'Now, a' God's name,' said Stephen Blackpool, 'show me the law to +help me!' + +'Hem! There's a sanctity in this relation of life,' said Mr. +Bounderby, 'and - and - it must be kept up.' + +'No no, dunnot say that, sir. 'Tan't kep' up that way. Not that +way. 'Tis kep' down that way. I'm a weaver, I were in a fact'ry +when a chilt, but I ha' gotten een to see wi' and eern to year wi'. +I read in th' papers every 'Sizes, every Sessions - and you read +too - I know it! - with dismay - how th' supposed unpossibility o' +ever getting unchained from one another, at any price, on any +terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings many common married +fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let us ha' this, right +understood. Mine's a grievous case, an' I want - if yo will be so +good - t' know the law that helps me.' + +'Now, I tell you what!' said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in +his pockets. 'There is such a law.' + +Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in +his attention, gave a nod. + +'But it's not for you at all. It costs money. It costs a mint of +money.' + +'How much might that be?' Stephen calmly asked. + +'Why, you'd have to go to Doctors' Commons with a suit, and you'd +have to go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you'd have to +go to the House of Lords with a suit, and you'd have to get an Act +of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you +(if it was a case of very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand +to fifteen hundred pound,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Perhaps twice the +money.' + +'There's no other law?' + +'Certainly not.' + +'Why then, sir,' said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with +that right hand of his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, +''tis a muddle. 'Tis just a muddle a'toogether, an' the sooner I +am dead, the better.' + +(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the people.) + +'Pooh, pooh! Don't you talk nonsense, my good fellow,' said Mr. +Bounderby, 'about things you don't understand; and don't you call +the Institutions of your country a muddle, or you'll get yourself +into a real muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of +your country are not your piece-work, and the only thing you have +got to do, is, to mind your piece-work. You didn't take your wife +for fast and for loose; but for better for worse. If she has +turned out worse - why, all we have got to say is, she might have +turned out better.' + +''Tis a muddle,' said Stephen, shaking his head as he moved to the +door. ''Tis a' a muddle!' + +'Now, I'll tell you what!' Mr. Bounderby resumed, as a valedictory +address. 'With what I shall call your unhallowed opinions, you +have been quite shocking this lady: who, as I have already told +you, is a born lady, and who, as I have not already told you, has +had her own marriage misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands +of pounds - tens of Thousands of Pounds!' (he repeated it with +great relish). 'Now, you have always been a steady Hand hitherto; +but my opinion is, and so I tell you plainly, that you are turning +into the wrong road. You have been listening to some mischievous +stranger or other - they're always about - and the best thing you +can do is, to come out of that. Now you know;' here his +countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; 'I can see as far into +a grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, +because I had my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see +traces of the turtle soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. +Yes, I do!' cried Mr. Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate +cunning. 'By the Lord Harry, I do!' + +With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, Stephen +said, 'Thank you, sir, I wish you good day.' So he left Mr. +Bounderby swelling at his own portrait on the wall, as if he were +going to explode himself into it; and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on +with her foot in her stirrup, looking quite cast down by the +popular vices. + + + +CHAPTER XII - THE OLD WOMAN + + + +OLD STEPHEN descended the two white steps, shutting the black door +with the brazen door-plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to +which he gave a parting polish with the sleeve of his coat, +observing that his hot hand clouded it. He crossed the street with +his eyes bent upon the ground, and thus was walking sorrowfully +away, when he felt a touch upon his arm. + +It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment - the touch +that could calm the wild waters of his soul, as the uplifted hand +of the sublimest love and patience could abate the raging of the +sea - yet it was a woman's hand too. It was an old woman, tall and +shapely still, though withered by time, on whom his eyes fell when +he stopped and turned. She was very cleanly and plainly dressed, +had country mud upon her shoes, and was newly come from a journey. +The flutter of her manner, in the unwonted noise of the streets; +the spare shawl, carried unfolded on her arm; the heavy umbrella, +and little basket; the loose long-fingered gloves, to which her +hands were unused; all bespoke an old woman from the country, in +her plain holiday clothes, come into Coketown on an expedition of +rare occurrence. Remarking this at a glance, with the quick +observation of his class, Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face +- his face, which, like the faces of many of his order, by dint of +long working with eyes and hands in the midst of a prodigious +noise, had acquired the concentrated look with which we are +familiar in the countenances of the deaf - the better to hear what +she asked him. + +'Pray, sir,' said the old woman, 'didn't I see you come out of that +gentleman's house?' pointing back to Mr. Bounderby's. 'I believe +it was you, unless I have had the bad luck to mistake the person in +following?' + +'Yes, missus,' returned Stephen, 'it were me.' + +'Have you - you'll excuse an old woman's curiosity - have you seen +the gentleman?' + +'Yes, missus.' + +'And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, outspoken, and +hearty?' As she straightened her own figure, and held up her head +in adapting her action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that +he had seen this old woman before, and had not quite liked her. + +'O yes,' he returned, observing her more attentively, 'he were all +that.' + +'And healthy,' said the old woman, 'as the fresh wind?' + +'Yes,' returned Stephen. 'He were ett'n and drinking - as large +and as loud as a Hummobee.' + +'Thank you!' said the old woman, with infinite content. 'Thank +you!' + +He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet there was a +vague remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than once dreamed +of some old woman like her. + +She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating himself to +her humour, he said Coketown was a busy place, was it not? To +which she answered 'Eigh sure! Dreadful busy!' Then he said, she +came from the country, he saw? To which she answered in the +affirmative. + +'By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile by +Parliamentary this morning, and I'm going back the same forty mile +this afternoon. I walked nine mile to the station this morning, +and if I find nobody on the road to give me a lift, I shall walk +the nine mile back to-night. That's pretty well, sir, at my age!' +said the chatty old woman, her eye brightening with exultation. + +''Deed 'tis. Don't do't too often, missus.' + +'No, no. Once a year,' she answered, shaking her head. 'I spend +my savings so, once every year. I come regular, to tramp about the +streets, and see the gentlemen.' + +'Only to see 'em?' returned Stephen. + +'That's enough for me,' she replied, with great earnestness and +interest of manner. 'I ask no more! I have been standing about, +on this side of the way, to see that gentleman,' turning her head +back towards Mr. Bounderby's again, 'come out. But, he's late this +year, and I have not seen him. You came out instead. Now, if I am +obliged to go back without a glimpse of him - I only want a glimpse +- well! I have seen you, and you have seen him, and I must make +that do.' Saying this, she looked at Stephen as if to fix his +features in her mind, and her eye was not so bright as it had been. + +With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all +submission to the patricians of Coketown, this seemed so +extraordinary a source of interest to take so much trouble about, +that it perplexed him. But they were passing the church now, and +as his eye caught the clock, he quickened his pace. + +He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, too, +quite easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his telling her where +he worked, the old woman became a more singular old woman than +before. + +'An't you happy?' she asked him. + +'Why - there's awmost nobbody but has their troubles, missus.' He +answered evasively, because the old woman appeared to take it for +granted that he would be very happy indeed, and he had not the +heart to disappoint her. He knew that there was trouble enough in +the world; and if the old woman had lived so long, and could count +upon his having so little, why so much the better for her, and none +the worse for him. + +'Ay, ay! You have your troubles at home, you mean?' she said. + +'Times. Just now and then,' he answered, slightly. + +'But, working under such a gentleman, they don't follow you to the +Factory?' + +No, no; they didn't follow him there, said Stephen. All correct +there. Everything accordant there. (He did not go so far as to +say, for her pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; +but, I have heard claims almost as magnificent of late years.) + +They were now in the black by-road near the place, and the Hands +were crowding in. The bell was ringing, and the Serpent was a +Serpent of many coils, and the Elephant was getting ready. The +strange old woman was delighted with the very bell. It was the +beautifullest bell she had ever heard, she said, and sounded grand! + +She asked him, when he stopped good-naturedly to shake hands with +her before going in, how long he had worked there? + +'A dozen year,' he told her. + +'I must kiss the hand,' said she, 'that has worked in this fine +factory for a dozen year!' And she lifted it, though he would have +prevented her, and put it to her lips. What harmony, besides her +age and her simplicity, surrounded her, he did not know, but even +in this fantastic action there was a something neither out of time +nor place: a something which it seemed as if nobody else could +have made as serious, or done with such a natural and touching air. + +He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking about this old +woman, when, having occasion to move round the loom for its +adjustment, he glanced through a window which was in his corner, +and saw her still looking up at the pile of building, lost in +admiration. Heedless of the smoke and mud and wet, and of her two +long journeys, she was gazing at it, as if the heavy thrum that +issued from its many stories were proud music to her. + +She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights +sprung up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy +Palace over the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the +machinery, and scarcely heard above its crash and rattle. Long +before then his thoughts had gone back to the dreary room above the +little shop, and to the shameful figure heavy on the bed, but +heavier on his heart. + +Machinery slackened; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; +stopped. The bell again; the glare of light and heat dispelled; +the factories, looming heavy in the black wet night - their tall +chimneys rising up into the air like competing Towers of Babel. + +He had spoken to Rachael only last night, it was true, and had +walked with her a little way; but he had his new misfortune on him, +in which no one else could give him a moment's relief, and, for the +sake of it, and because he knew himself to want that softening of +his anger which no voice but hers could effect, he felt he might so +far disregard what she had said as to wait for her again. He +waited, but she had eluded him. She was gone. On no other night +in the year could he so ill have spared her patient face. + +O! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than to have a +home and dread to go to it, through such a cause. He ate and +drank, for he was exhausted - but he little knew or cared what; and +he wandered about in the chill rain, thinking and thinking, and +brooding and brooding. + +No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but Rachael +had taken great pity on him years ago, and to her alone he had +opened his closed heart all this time, on the subject of his +miseries; and he knew very well that if he were free to ask her, +she would take him. He thought of the home he might at that moment +have been seeking with pleasure and pride; of the different man he +might have been that night; of the lightness then in his now heavy- +laden breast; of the then restored honour, self-respect, and +tranquillity all torn to pieces. He thought of the waste of the +best part of his life, of the change it made in his character for +the worse every day, of the dreadful nature of his existence, bound +hand and foot, to a dead woman, and tormented by a demon in her +shape. He thought of Rachael, how young when they were first +brought together in these circumstances, how mature now, how soon +to grow old. He thought of the number of girls and women she had +seen marry, how many homes with children in them she had seen grow +up around her, how she had contentedly pursued her own lone quiet +path - for him - and how he had sometimes seen a shade of +melancholy on her blessed face, that smote him with remorse and +despair. He set the picture of her up, beside the infamous image +of last night; and thought, Could it be, that the whole earthly +course of one so gentle, good, and self-denying, was subjugate to +such a wretch as that! + +Filled with these thoughts - so filled that he had an unwholesome +sense of growing larger, of being placed in some new and diseased +relation towards the objects among which he passed, of seeing the +iris round every misty light turn red - he went home for shelter. + + + +CHAPTER XIII - RACHAEL + + + +A CANDLE faintly burned in the window, to which the black ladder +had often been raised for the sliding away of all that was most +precious in this world to a striving wife and a brood of hungry +babies; and Stephen added to his other thoughts the stern +reflection, that of all the casualties of this existence upon +earth, not one was dealt out with so unequal a hand as Death. The +inequality of Birth was nothing to it. For, say that the child of +a King and the child of a Weaver were born to-night in the same +moment, what was that disparity, to the death of any human creature +who was serviceable to, or beloved by, another, while this +abandoned woman lived on! + +From the outside of his home he gloomily passed to the inside, with +suspended breath and with a slow footstep. He went up to his door, +opened it, and so into the room. + +Quiet and peace were there. Rachael was there, sitting by the bed. + +She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon the +midnight of his mind. She sat by the bed, watching and tending his +wife. That is to say, he saw that some one lay there, and he knew +too well it must be she; but Rachael's hands had put a curtain up, +so that she was screened from his eyes. Her disgraceful garments +were removed, and some of Rachael's were in the room. Everything +was in its place and order as he had always kept it, the little +fire was newly trimmed, and the hearth was freshly swept. It +appeared to him that he saw all this in Rachael's face, and looked +at nothing besides. While looking at it, it was shut out from his +view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but not before he +had seen how earnestly she looked at him, and how her own eyes were +filled too. + +She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying herself that all +was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice. + +'I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are very late.' + +'I ha' been walking up an' down.' + +'I thought so. But 'tis too bad a night for that. The rain falls +very heavy, and the wind has risen.' + +The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to the thundering in +the chimney, and the surging noise! To have been out in such a +wind, and not to have known it was blowing! + +'I have been here once before, to-day, Stephen. Landlady came +round for me at dinner-time. There was some one here that needed +looking to, she said. And 'deed she was right. All wandering and +lost, Stephen. Wounded too, and bruised.' + +He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his head before +her. + +'I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for that she +worked with me when we were girls both, and for that you courted +her and married her when I was her friend - ' + +He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low groan. + +'And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and +certain that 'tis far too merciful to let her die, or even so much +as suffer, for want of aid. Thou knowest who said, "Let him who is +without sin among you cast the first stone at her!" There have +been plenty to do that. Thou art not the man to cast the last +stone, Stephen, when she is brought so low.' + +'O Rachael, Rachael!' + +'Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!' she said, in +compassionate accents. 'I am thy poor friend, with all my heart +and mind.' + +The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the neck of +the self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still without showing +her. She steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she +poured some liquid from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand +upon the sore. The three-legged table had been drawn close to the +bedside, and on it there were two bottles. This was one. + +It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with +his eyes, could read what was printed on it in large letters. He +turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon +him. + +'I will stay here, Stephen,' said Rachael, quietly resuming her +seat, 'till the bells go Three. 'Tis to be done again at three, +and then she may be left till morning.' + +'But thy rest agen to-morrow's work, my dear.' + +'I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put +to it. 'Tis thou who art in need of rest - so white and tired. +Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no +sleep last night, I can well believe. To-morrow's work is far +harder for thee than for me.' + +He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to +him as if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at +him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her +to defend him from himself. + +'She don't know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. +I have spoken to her times and again, but she don't notice! 'Tis +as well so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall +have done what I can, and she never the wiser.' + +'How long, Rachael, is 't looked for, that she'll be so?' + +'Doctor said she would haply come to her mind to-morrow.' + +His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him, +causing him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled +with the wet. 'No,' he said, 'it was not that. He had had a +fright.' + +'A fright?' + +'Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking. +When I - ' It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the +mantel-shelf, as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand +that shook as if it were palsied. + +'Stephen!' + +She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop her. + +'No! Don't, please; don't. Let me see thee setten by the bed. +Let me see thee, a' so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as +I see thee when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. +Never, never, never!' + +He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair. +After a time he controlled himself, and, resting with an elbow on +one knee, and his head upon that hand, could look towards Rachael. +Seen across the dim candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as +if she had a glory shining round her head. He could have believed +she had. He did believe it, as the noise without shook the window, +rattled at the door below, and went about the house clamouring and +lamenting. + +'When she gets better, Stephen, 'tis to be hoped she'll leave thee +to thyself again, and do thee no more hurt. Anyways we will hope +so now. And now I shall keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.' + +He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary head; +but, by slow degrees as he listened to the great noise of the wind, +he ceased to hear it, or it changed into the working of his loom, +or even into the voices of the day (his own included) saying what +had been really said. Even this imperfect consciousness faded away +at last, and he dreamed a long, troubled dream. + +He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been +set - but she was not Rachael, and that surprised him, even in the +midst of his imaginary happiness - stood in the church being +married. While the ceremony was performing, and while he +recognized among the witnesses some whom he knew to be living, and +many whom he knew to be dead, darkness came on, succeeded by the +shining of a tremendous light. It broke from one line in the table +of commandments at the altar, and illuminated the building with the +words. They were sounded through the church, too, as if there were +voices in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole appearance +before him and around him changed, and nothing was left as it had +been, but himself and the clergyman. They stood in the daylight +before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could +have been brought together into one space, they could not have +looked, he thought, more numerous; and they all abhorred him, and +there was not one pitying or friendly eye among the millions that +were fastened on his face. He stood on a raised stage, under his +own loom; and, looking up at the shape the loom took, and hearing +the burial service distinctly read, he knew that he was there to +suffer death. In an instant what he stood on fell below him, and +he was gone. + +- Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, and to places +that he knew, he was unable to consider; but he was back in those +places by some means, and with this condemnation upon him, that he +was never, in this world or the next, through all the unimaginable +ages of eternity, to look on Rachael's face or hear her voice. +Wandering to and fro, unceasingly, without hope, and in search of +he knew not what (he only knew that he was doomed to seek it), he +was the subject of a nameless, horrible dread, a mortal fear of one +particular shape which everything took. Whatsoever he looked at, +grew into that form sooner or later. The object of his miserable +existence was to prevent its recognition by any one among the +various people he encountered. Hopeless labour! If he led them +out of rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and closets where +it stood, if he drew the curious from places where he knew it to be +secreted, and got them out into the streets, the very chimneys of +the mills assumed that shape, and round them was the printed word. + +The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the house-tops, +and the larger spaces through which he had strayed contracted to +the four walls of his room. Saving that the fire had died out, it +was as his eyes had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have fallen +into a doze, in the chair by the bed. She sat wrapped in her +shawl, perfectly still. The table stood in the same place, close +by the bedside, and on it, in its real proportions and appearance, +was the shape so often repeated. + +He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and he was +sure it moved. He saw a hand come forth and grope about a little. +Then the curtain moved more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed +put it back, and sat up. + +With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, she +looked all round the room, and passed the corner where he slept in +his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner, and she put her hand +over them as a shade, while she looked into it. Again they went +all round the room, scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and +returned to that corner. He thought, as she once more shaded them +- not so much looking at him, as looking for him with a brutish +instinct that he was there - that no single trace was left in those +debauched features, or in the mind that went along with them, of +the woman he had married eighteen years before. But that he had +seen her come to this by inches, he never could have believed her +to be the same. + +All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless and +powerless, except to watch her. + +Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about +nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears, and +her head resting on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round +the room. And now, for the first time, her eyes stopped at the +table with the bottles on it. + +Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the +defiance of last night, and moving very cautiously and softly, +stretched out her greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and +sat for a while considering which of the two bottles she should +choose. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that +had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out +the cork with her teeth. + +Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If +this be real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, +wake! + +She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, +very cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her +lips. A moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world +wake and come about her with its utmost power. But in that moment +Rachael started up with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled, +struck her, seized her by the hair; but Rachael had the cup. + +Stephen broke out of his chair. 'Rachael, am I wakin' or dreamin' +this dreadfo' night?' + +''Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. 'Tis near +three. Hush! I hear the bells.' + +The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. +They listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how +pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of +fingers on her forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight +and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. + +'I thought it must be near three,' she said, calmly pouring from +the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. 'I am +thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! +And now she's quiet again. The few drops in the basin I'll pour +away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of +it.' As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the +fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth. + +She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl +before going out into the wind and rain. + +'Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?' + +'No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home.' + +'Thou'rt not fearfo';' he said it in a low voice, as they went out +at the door; 'to leave me alone wi' her!' + +As she looked at him, saying, 'Stephen?' he went down on his knee +before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to +his lips. + +'Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!' + +'I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are +not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults, +there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she +is changed.' + +She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then +they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. + +'Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo' +to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose thee when this life is +ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be, +thou hast saved my soul alive!' + +She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in +his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the +working of his face. + +'I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi' +thinking that when I said a word o' complaint I was reckoned a +unreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the +Poison-bottle on table. I never hurt a livin' creetur; but +happenin' so suddenly upon 't, I thowt, "How can I say what I might +ha' done to myseln, or her, or both!"' + +She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop +him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and +holding them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said +hurriedly: + +'But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha' seen thee, aw +this night. In my troublous sleep I ha' known thee still to be +there. Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her +or think o' her, but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will +see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better +than me, shalt be by th' side on't. And so I will try t' look t' +th' time, and so I will try t' trust t' th' time, when thou and me +at last shall walk together far awa', beyond the deep gulf, in th' +country where thy little sister is.' + +He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. She bade +him good night in a broken voice, and went out into the street. + +The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon appear, and +still blew strongly. It had cleared the sky before it, and the +rain had spent itself or travelled elsewhere, and the stars were +bright. He stood bare-headed in the road, watching her quick +disappearance. As the shining stars were to the heavy candle in +the window, so was Rachael, in the rugged fancy of this man, to the +common experiences of his life. + + + +CHAPTER XIV - THE GREAT MANUFACTURER + + + +TIME went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material +wrought up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much +money made. But, less inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it +brought its varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and +brick, and made the only stand that ever was made in the place +against its direful uniformity. + +'Louisa is becoming,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'almost a young woman.' + +Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, not minding +what anybody said, and presently turned out young Thomas a foot +taller than when his father had last taken particular notice of +him. + +'Thomas is becoming,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'almost a young man.' + +Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was thinking +about it, and there he stood in a long-tailed coat and a stiff +shirt-collar. + +'Really,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'the period has arrived when Thomas +ought to go to Bounderby.' + +Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby's Bank, made +him an inmate of Bounderby's house, necessitated the purchase of +his first razor, and exercised him diligently in his calculations +relative to number one. + +The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of work +on hand, in every stage of development, passed Sissy onward in his +mill, and worked her up into a very pretty article indeed. + +'I fear, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that your continuance at the +school any longer would be useless.' + +'I am afraid it would, sir,' Sissy answered with a curtsey. + +'I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting +his brow, 'that the result of your probation there has disappointed +me; has greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. +and Mrs. M'Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact +knowledge which I looked for. You are extremely deficient in your +facts. Your acquaintance with figures is very limited. You are +altogether backward, and below the mark.' + +'I am sorry, sir,' she returned; 'but I know it is quite true. Yet +I have tried hard, sir.' + +'Yes,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'yes, I believe you have tried hard; I +have observed you, and I can find no fault in that respect.' + +'Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;' Sissy very timid here; +'that perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to +be allowed to try a little less, I might have - ' + +'No, Jupe, no,' said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his +profoundest and most eminently practical way. 'No. The course you +pursued, you pursued according to the system - the system - and +there is no more to be said about it. I can only suppose that the +circumstances of your early life were too unfavourable to the +development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. +Still, as I have said already, I am disappointed.' + +'I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your +kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of +your protection of her.' + +'Don't shed tears,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Don't shed tears. I +don't complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good +young woman - and - and we must make that do.' + +'Thank you, sir, very much,' said Sissy, with a grateful curtsey. + +'You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a generally pervading +way) you are serviceable in the family also; so I understand from +Miss Louisa, and, indeed, so I have observed myself. I therefore +hope,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that you can make yourself happy in +those relations.' + +'I should have nothing to wish, sir, if - ' + +'I understand you,' said Mr. Gradgrind; 'you still refer to your +father. I have heard from Miss Louisa that you still preserve that +bottle. Well! If your training in the science of arriving at +exact results had been more successful, you would have been wiser +on these points. I will say no more.' + +He really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for her; +otherwise he held her calculating powers in such very slight +estimation that he must have fallen upon that conclusion. Somehow +or other, he had become possessed by an idea that there was +something in this girl which could hardly be set forth in a tabular +form. Her capacity of definition might be easily stated at a very +low figure, her mathematical knowledge at nothing; yet he was not +sure that if he had been required, for example, to tick her off +into columns in a parliamentary return, he would have quite known +how to divide her. + +In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric, the +processes of Time are very rapid. Young Thomas and Sissy being +both at such a stage of their working up, these changes were +effected in a year or two; while Mr. Gradgrind himself seemed +stationary in his course, and underwent no alteration. + +Except one, which was apart from his necessary progress through the +mill. Time hustled him into a little noisy and rather dirty +machinery, in a by-comer, and made him Member of Parliament for +Coketown: one of the respected members for ounce weights and +measures, one of the representatives of the multiplication table, +one of the deaf honourable gentlemen, dumb honourable gentlemen, +blind honourable gentlemen, lame honourable gentlemen, dead +honourable gentlemen, to every other consideration. Else wherefore +live we in a Christian land, eighteen hundred and odd years after +our Master? + +All this while, Louisa had been passing on, so quiet and reserved, +and so much given to watching the bright ashes at twilight as they +fell into the grate, and became extinct, that from the period when +her father had said she was almost a young woman - which seemed but +yesterday - she had scarcely attracted his notice again, when he +found her quite a young woman. + +'Quite a young woman,' said Mr. Gradgrind, musing. 'Dear me!' + +Soon after this discovery, he became more thoughtful than usual for +several days, and seemed much engrossed by one subject. On a +certain night, when he was going out, and Louisa came to bid him +good-bye before his departure - as he was not to be home until late +and she would not see him again until the morning - he held her in +his arms, looking at her in his kindest manner, and said: + +'My dear Louisa, you are a woman!' + +She answered with the old, quick, searching look of the night when +she was found at the Circus; then cast down her eyes. 'Yes, +father.' + +'My dear,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'I must speak with you alone and +seriously. Come to me in my room after breakfast to-morrow, will +you?' + +'Yes, father.' + +'Your hands are rather cold, Louisa. Are you not well?' + +'Quite well, father.' + +'And cheerful?' + +She looked at him again, and smiled in her peculiar manner. 'I am +as cheerful, father, as I usually am, or usually have been.' + +'That's well,' said Mr. Gradgrind. So, he kissed her and went +away; and Louisa returned to the serene apartment of the +haircutting character, and leaning her elbow on her hand, looked +again at the short-lived sparks that so soon subsided into ashes. + +'Are you there, Loo?' said her brother, looking in at the door. He +was quite a young gentleman of pleasure now, and not quite a +prepossessing one. + +'Dear Tom,' she answered, rising and embracing him, 'how long it is +since you have been to see me!' + +'Why, I have been otherwise engaged, Loo, in the evenings; and in +the daytime old Bounderby has been keeping me at it rather. But I +touch him up with you when he comes it too strong, and so we +preserve an understanding. I say! Has father said anything +particular to you to-day or yesterday, Loo?' + +'No, Tom. But he told me to-night that he wished to do so in the +morning.' + +'Ah! That's what I mean,' said Tom. 'Do you know where he is to- +night?' - with a very deep expression. + +'No.' + +'Then I'll tell you. He's with old Bounderby. They are having a +regular confab together up at the Bank. Why at the Bank, do you +think? Well, I'll tell you again. To keep Mrs. Sparsit's ears as +far off as possible, I expect.' + +With her hand upon her brother's shoulder, Louisa still stood +looking at the fire. Her brother glanced at her face with greater +interest than usual, and, encircling her waist with his arm, drew +her coaxingly to him. + +'You are very fond of me, an't you, Loo?' + +'Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let such long intervals go by +without coming to see me.' + +'Well, sister of mine,' said Tom, 'when you say that, you are near +my thoughts. We might be so much oftener together - mightn't we? +Always together, almost - mightn't we? It would do me a great deal +of good if you were to make up your mind to I know what, Loo. It +would be a splendid thing for me. It would be uncommonly jolly!' + +Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He could make +nothing of her face. He pressed her in his arm, and kissed her +cheek. She returned the kiss, but still looked at the fire. + +'I say, Loo! I thought I'd come, and just hint to you what was +going on: though I supposed you'd most likely guess, even if you +didn't know. I can't stay, because I'm engaged to some fellows to- +night. You won't forget how fond you are of me?' + +'No, dear Tom, I won't forget.' + +'That's a capital girl,' said Tom. 'Good-bye, Loo.' + +She gave him an affectionate good-night, and went out with him to +the door, whence the fires of Coketown could be seen, making the +distance lurid. She stood there, looking steadfastly towards them, +and listening to his departing steps. They retreated quickly, as +glad to get away from Stone Lodge; and she stood there yet, when he +was gone and all was quiet. It seemed as if, first in her own fire +within the house, and then in the fiery haze without, she tried to +discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest- +established Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had +already spun into a woman. But his factory is a secret place, his +work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes. + + + +CHAPTER XV - FATHER AND DAUGHTER + + + +ALTHOUGH Mr. Gradgrind did not take after Blue Beard, his room was +quite a blue chamber in its abundance of blue books. Whatever they +could prove (which is usually anything you like), they proved +there, in an army constantly strengthening by the arrival of new +recruits. In that charmed apartment, the most complicated social +questions were cast up, got into exact totals, and finally settled +- if those concerned could only have been brought to know it. As +if an astronomical observatory should be made without any windows, +and the astronomer within should arrange the starry universe solely +by pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in his Observatory (and +there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye upon the +teeming myriads of human beings around him, but could settle all +their destinies on a slate, and wipe out all their tears with one +dirty little bit of sponge. + +To this Observatory, then: a stern room, with a deadly statistical +clock in it, which measured every second with a beat like a rap +upon a coffin-lid; Louisa repaired on the appointed morning. A +window looked towards Coketown; and when she sat down near her +father's table, she saw the high chimneys and the long tracts of +smoke looming in the heavy distance gloomily. + +'My dear Louisa,' said her father, 'I prepared you last night to +give me your serious attention in the conversation we are now going +to have together. You have been so well trained, and you do, I am +happy to say, so much justice to the education you have received, +that I have perfect confidence in your good sense. You are not +impulsive, you are not romantic, you are accustomed to view +everything from the strong dispassionate ground of reason and +calculation. From that ground alone, I know you will view and +consider what I am going to communicate.' + +He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said something. +But she said never a word. + +'Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage +that has been made to me.' + +Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. This so far +surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, 'a proposal of +marriage, my dear.' To which she returned, without any visible +emotion whatever: + +'I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure you.' + +'Well!' said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for +the moment at a loss, 'you are even more dispassionate than I +expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the +announcement I have it in charge to make?' + +'I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared or +unprepared, I wish to hear it all from you. I wish to hear you +state it to me, father.' + +Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this +moment as his daughter was. He took a paper-knife in his hand, +turned it over, laid it down, took it up again, and even then had +to look along the blade of it, considering how to go on. + +'What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reasonable. I have +undertaken then to let you know that - in short, that Mr. Bounderby +has informed me that he has long watched your progress with +particular interest and pleasure, and has long hoped that the time +might ultimately arrive when he should offer you his hand in +marriage. That time, to which he has so long, and certainly with +great constancy, looked forward, is now come. Mr. Bounderby has +made his proposal of marriage to me, and has entreated me to make +it known to you, and to express his hope that you will take it into +your favourable consideration.' + +Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very hollow. +The distant smoke very black and heavy. + +'Father,' said Louisa, 'do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?' + +Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected +question. 'Well, my child,' he returned, 'I - really - cannot take +upon myself to say.' + +'Father,' pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, 'do +you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?' + +'My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.' + +'Father,' she still pursued, 'does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love +him?' + +'Really, my dear,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'it is difficult to answer +your question - ' + +'Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father? + +'Certainly, my dear. Because;' here was something to demonstrate, +and it set him up again; 'because the reply depends so materially, +Louisa, on the sense in which we use the expression. Now, Mr. +Bounderby does not do you the injustice, and does not do himself +the injustice, of pretending to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I +am using synonymous terms) sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have +seen you grow up under his eyes, to very little purpose, if he +could so far forget what is due to your good sense, not to say to +his, as to address you from any such ground. Therefore, perhaps +the expression itself - I merely suggest this to you, my dear - may +be a little misplaced.' + +'What would you advise me to use in its stead, father?' + +'Why, my dear Louisa,' said Mr. Gradgrind, completely recovered by +this time, 'I would advise you (since you ask me) to consider this +question, as you have been accustomed to consider every other +question, simply as one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the +giddy may embarrass such subjects with irrelevant fancies, and +other absurdities that have no existence, properly viewed - really +no existence - but it is no compliment to you to say, that you know +better. Now, what are the Facts of this case? You are, we will +say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. Bounderby is, we +will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your +respective years, but in your means and positions there is none; on +the contrary, there is a great suitability. Then the question +arises, Is this one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to +such a marriage? In considering this question, it is not +unimportant to take into account the statistics of marriage, so far +as they have yet been obtained, in England and Wales. I find, on +reference to the figures, that a large proportion of these +marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages, and +that the elder of these contracting parties is, in rather more than +three-fourths of these instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable +as showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives +of the British possessions in India, also in a considerable part of +China, and among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of +computation yet furnished us by travellers, yield similar results. +The disparity I have mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be +disparity, and (virtually) all but disappears.' + +'What do you recommend, father,' asked Louisa, her reserved +composure not in the least affected by these gratifying results, +'that I should substitute for the term I used just now? For the +misplaced expression?' + +'Louisa,' returned her father, 'it appears to me that nothing can +be plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of +Fact you state to yourself is: Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry +him? Yes, he does. The sole remaining question then is: Shall I +marry him? I think nothing can be plainer than that?' + +'Shall I marry him?' repeated Louisa, with great deliberation. + +'Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear +Louisa, to know that you do not come to the consideration of that +question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that +belong to many young women.' + +'No, father,' she returned, 'I do not.' + +'I now leave you to judge for yourself,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'I +have stated the case, as such cases are usually stated among +practical minds; I have stated it, as the case of your mother and +myself was stated in its time. The rest, my dear Louisa, is for +you to decide.' + +From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now +leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in +his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, +when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give +him the pent-up confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must +have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for many +years been erecting, between himself and all those subtle essences +of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until +the last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to +wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for such a leap. +With his unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened +her again; and the moment shot away into the plumbless depths of +the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are +drowned there. + +Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently +towards the town, that he said, at length: 'Are you consulting the +chimneys of the Coketown works, Louisa?' + +'There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. +Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!' she answered, +turning quickly. + +'Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of +the remark.' To do him justice he did not, at all. + +She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and +concentrating her attention upon him again, said, 'Father, I have +often thought that life is very short.' - This was so distinctly +one of his subjects that he interposed. + +'It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of +human life is proved to have increased of late years. The +calculations of various life assurance and annuity offices, among +other figures which cannot go wrong, have established the fact.' + +'I speak of my own life, father.' + +'O indeed? Still,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'I need not point out to +you, Louisa, that it is governed by the laws which govern lives in +the aggregate.' + +'While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the +little I am fit for. What does it matter?' + +Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four +words; replying, 'How, matter? What matter, my dear?' + +'Mr. Bounderby,' she went on in a steady, straight way, without +regarding this, 'asks me to marry him. The question I have to ask +myself is, shall I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You +have told me so, father. Have you not?' + +'Certainly, my dear.' + +'Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am +satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you +please, that this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you +can, because I should wish him to know what I said.' + +'It is quite right, my dear,' retorted her father approvingly, 'to +be exact. I will observe your very proper request. Have you any +wish in reference to the period of your marriage, my child?' + +'None, father. What does it matter!' + +Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken +her hand. But, her repetition of these words seemed to strike with +some little discord on his ear. He paused to look at her, and, +still holding her hand, said: + +'Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you one +question, because the possibility implied in it appeared to me to +be too remote. But perhaps I ought to do so. You have never +entertained in secret any other proposal?' + +'Father,' she returned, almost scornfully, 'what other proposal can +have been made to me? Whom have I seen? Where have I been? What +are my heart's experiences?' + +'My dear Louisa,' returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured and satisfied. +'You correct me justly. I merely wished to discharge my duty.' + +'What do I know, father,' said Louisa in her quiet manner, 'of +tastes and fancies; of aspirations and affections; of all that part +of my nature in which such light things might have been nourished? +What escape have I had from problems that could be demonstrated, +and realities that could be grasped?' As she said it, she +unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon a solid object, and +slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust or ash. + +'My dear,' assented her eminently practical parent, 'quite true, +quite true.' + +'Why, father,' she pursued, 'what a strange question to ask me! +The baby-preference that even I have heard of as common among +children, has never had its innocent resting-place in my breast. +You have been so careful of me, that I never had a child's heart. +You have trained me so well, that I never dreamed a child's dream. +You have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle to this +hour, that I never had a child's belief or a child's fear.' + +Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony +to it. 'My dear Louisa,' said he, 'you abundantly repay my care. +Kiss me, my dear girl.' + +So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his embrace, he +said, 'I may assure you now, my favourite child, that I am made +happy by the sound decision at which you have arrived. Mr. +Bounderby is a very remarkable man; and what little disparity can +be said to exist between you - if any - is more than +counterbalanced by the tone your mind has acquired. It has always +been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still in +your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age. +Kiss me once more, Louisa. Now, let us go and find your mother.' + +Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, where the esteemed +lady with no nonsense about her, was recumbent as usual, while +Sissy worked beside her. She gave some feeble signs of returning +animation when they entered, and presently the faint transparency +was presented in a sitting attitude. + +'Mrs. Gradgrind,' said her husband, who had waited for the +achievement of this feat with some impatience, 'allow me to present +to you Mrs. Bounderby.' + +'Oh!' said Mrs. Gradgrind, 'so you have settled it! Well, I'm sure +I hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to +split as soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I +cannot consider that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt +you think you are, as all girls do. However, I give you joy, my +dear - and I hope you may now turn all your ological studies to +good account, I am sure I do! I must give you a kiss of +congratulation, Louisa; but don't touch my right shoulder, for +there's something running down it all day long. And now you see,' +whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the +affectionate ceremony, 'I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, +and night, to know what I am to call him!' + +'Mrs. Gradgrind,' said her husband, solemnly, 'what do you mean?' + +'Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to +Louisa! I must call him something. It's impossible,' said Mrs. +Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, 'to be +constantly addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot +call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself +wouldn't hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son- +in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, +as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, +what am I to call him!' + +Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable +emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, +after delivering the following codicil to her remarks already +executed: + +'As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is, - and I ask it with a +fluttering in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my +feet, - that it may take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one +of those subjects I shall never hear the last of.' + +When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly +turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in +doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had +known it, and seen it, without looking at her. From that moment +she was impassive, proud and cold - held Sissy at a distance - +changed to her altogether. + + + +CHAPTER XVI - HUSBAND AND WIFE + + + +MR. BOUNDERBY'S first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was +occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He +could not make up his mind how to do that, or what the consequences +of the step might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and +baggage, to Lady Scadgers, or would positively refuse to budge from +the premises; whether she would be plaintive or abusive, tearful or +tearing; whether she would break her heart, or break the looking- +glass; Mr. Bounderby could not all foresee. However, as it must be +done, he had no choice but to do it; so, after attempting several +letters, and failing in them all, he resolved to do it by word of +mouth. + +On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this momentous +purpose, he took the precaution of stepping into a chemist's shop +and buying a bottle of the very strongest smelling-salts. 'By +George!' said Mr. Bounderby, 'if she takes it in the fainting way, +I'll have the skin off her nose, at all events!' But, in spite of +being thus forearmed, he entered his own house with anything but a +courageous air; and appeared before the object of his misgivings, +like a dog who was conscious of coming direct from the pantry. + +'Good evening, Mr. Bounderby!' + +'Good evening, ma'am, good evening.' He drew up his chair, and +Mrs. Sparsit drew back hers, as who should say, 'Your fireside, +sir. I freely admit it. It is for you to occupy it all, if you +think proper.' + +'Don't go to the North Pole, ma'am!' said Mr. Bounderby. + +'Thank you, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, though short of +her former position. + +Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points of a stiff, +sharp pair of scissors, she picked out holes for some inscrutable +ornamental purpose, in a piece of cambric. An operation which, +taken in connexion with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, +suggested with some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the +eyes of a tough little bird. She was so steadfastly occupied, that +many minutes elapsed before she looked up from her work; when she +did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her attention with a hitch of his +head. + +'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his +pockets, and assuring himself with his right hand that the cork of +the little bottle was ready for use, 'I have no occasion to say to +you, that you are not only a lady born and bred, but a devilish +sensible woman.' + +'Sir,' returned the lady, 'this is indeed not the first time that +you have honoured me with similar expressions of your good +opinion.' + +'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'I am going to astonish +you.' + +'Yes, sir?' returned Mrs. Sparsit, interrogatively, and in the most +tranquil manner possible. She generally wore mittens, and she now +laid down her work, and smoothed those mittens. + +'I am going, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'to marry Tom Gradgrind's +daughter.' + +'Yes, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'I hope you may be happy, Mr. +Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you may be happy, sir!' And she said +it with such great condescension as well as with such great +compassion for him, that Bounderby, - far more disconcerted than if +she had thrown her workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the +hearthrug, - corked up the smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and +thought, 'Now confound this woman, who could have even guessed that +she would take it in this way!' + +'I wish with all my heart, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, in a highly +superior manner; somehow she seemed, in a moment, to have +established a right to pity him ever afterwards; 'that you may be +in all respects very happy.' + +'Well, ma'am,' returned Bounderby, with some resentment in his +tone: which was clearly lowered, though in spite of himself, 'I am +obliged to you. I hope I shall be.' + +'Do you, sir!' said Mrs. Sparsit, with great affability. 'But +naturally you do; of course you do.' + +A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby's part, succeeded. Mrs. +Sparsit sedately resumed her work and occasionally gave a small +cough, which sounded like the cough of conscious strength and +forbearance. + +'Well, ma'am,' resumed Bounderby, 'under these circumstances, I +imagine it would not be agreeable to a character like yours to +remain here, though you would be very welcome here.' + +'Oh, dear no, sir, I could on no account think of that!' Mrs. +Sparsit shook her head, still in her highly superior manner, and a +little changed the small cough - coughing now, as if the spirit of +prophecy rose within her, but had better be coughed down. + +'However, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'there are apartments at the +Bank, where a born and bred lady, as keeper of the place, would be +rather a catch than otherwise; and if the same terms - ' + +'I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to promise that you +would always substitute the phrase, annual compliment.' + +'Well, ma'am, annual compliment. If the same annual compliment +would be acceptable there, why, I see nothing to part us, unless +you do.' + +'Sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'The proposal is like yourself, and +if the position I shall assume at the Bank is one that I could +occupy without descending lower in the social scale - ' + +'Why, of course it is,' said Bounderby. 'If it was not, ma'am, you +don't suppose that I should offer it to a lady who has moved in the +society you have moved in. Not that I care for such society, you +know! But you do.' + +'Mr. Bounderby, you are very considerate.' + +'You'll have your own private apartments, and you'll have your +coals and your candles, and all the rest of it, and you'll have +your maid to attend upon you, and you'll have your light porter to +protect you, and you'll be what I take the liberty of considering +precious comfortable,' said Bounderby. + + 'Sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, 'say no more. In yielding up my +trust here, I shall not be freed from the necessity of eating the +bread of dependence:' she might have said the sweetbread, for that +delicate article in a savoury brown sauce was her favourite supper: +'and I would rather receive it from your hand, than from any other. +Therefore, sir, I accept your offer gratefully, and with many +sincere acknowledgments for past favours. And I hope, sir,' said +Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an impressively compassionate manner, +'I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may be all you desire, and +deserve!' + +Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. It was in +vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in any of his +explosive ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on +him, as a Victim. She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful; +but, the more polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful, the +more hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, she; the forlorner +Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that tenderness for his +melancholy fate, that his great red countenance used to break out +into cold perspirations when she looked at him. + +Meanwhile the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight +weeks' time, and Mr. Bounderby went every evening to Stone Lodge as +an accepted wooer. Love was made on these occasions in the form of +bracelets; and, on all occasions during the period of betrothal, +took a manufacturing aspect. Dresses were made, jewellery was +made, cakes and gloves were made, settlements were made, and an +extensive assortment of Facts did appropriate honour to the +contract. The business was all Fact, from first to last. The +Hours did not go through any of those rosy performances, which +foolish poets have ascribed to them at such times; neither did the +clocks go any faster, or any slower, than at other seasons. The +deadly statistical recorder in the Gradgrind observatory knocked +every second on the head as it was born, and buried it with his +accustomed regularity. + +So the day came, as all other days come to people who will only +stick to reason; and when it came, there were married in the church +of the florid wooden legs - that popular order of architecture - +Josiah Bounderby Esquire of Coketown, to Louisa eldest daughter of +Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of Stone Lodge, M.P. for that borough. +And when they were united in holy matrimony, they went home to +breakfast at Stone Lodge aforesaid. + +There was an improving party assembled on the auspicious occasion, +who knew what everything they had to eat and drink was made of, and +how it was imported or exported, and in what quantities, and in +what bottoms, whether native or foreign, and all about it. The +bridesmaids, down to little Jane Gradgrind, were, in an +intellectual point of view, fit helpmates for the calculating boy; +and there was no nonsense about any of the company. + +After breakfast, the bridegroom addressed them in the following +terms: + +'Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Since +you have done my wife and myself the honour of drinking our healths +and happiness, I suppose I must acknowledge the same; though, as +you all know me, and know what I am, and what my extraction was, +you won't expect a speech from a man who, when he sees a Post, says +"that's a Post," and when he sees a Pump, says "that's a Pump," and +is not to be got to call a Post a Pump, or a Pump a Post, or either +of them a Toothpick. If you want a speech this morning, my friend +and father-in-law, Tom Gradgrind, is a Member of Parliament, and +you know where to get it. I am not your man. However, if I feel a +little independent when I look around this table to-day, and +reflect how little I thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind's daughter +when I was a ragged street-boy, who never washed his face unless it +was at a pump, and that not oftener than once a fortnight, I hope I +may be excused. So, I hope you like my feeling independent; if you +don't, I can't help it. I do feel independent. Now I have +mentioned, and you have mentioned, that I am this day married to +Tom Gradgrind's daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has long +been my wish to be so. I have watched her bringing-up, and I +believe she is worthy of me. At the same time - not to deceive you +- I believe I am worthy of her. So, I thank you, on both our +parts, for the good-will you have shown towards us; and the best +wish I can give the unmarried part of the present company, is this: +I hope every bachelor may find as good a wife as I have found. And +I hope every spinster may find as good a husband as my wife has +found.' + +Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial trip +to Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might take the opportunity of +seeing how the Hands got on in those parts, and whether they, too, +required to be fed with gold spoons; the happy pair departed for +the railroad. The bride, in passing down-stairs, dressed for her +journey, found Tom waiting for her - flushed, either with his +feelings, or the vinous part of the breakfast. + +'What a game girl you are, to be such a first-rate sister, Loo!' +whispered Tom. + +She clung to him as she should have clung to some far better nature +that day, and was a little shaken in her reserved composure for the +first time. + +'Old Bounderby's quite ready,' said Tom. 'Time's up. Good-bye! I +shall be on the look-out for you, when you come back. I say, my +dear Loo! AN'T it uncommonly jolly now!' + + +END OF THE FIRST BOOK + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND - REAPING + + + + +CHAPTER I - EFFECTS IN THE BANK + + + +A SUNNY midsummer day. There was such a thing sometimes, even in +Coketown. + +Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in a +haze of its own, which appeared impervious to the sun's rays. You +only knew the town was there, because you knew there could have +been no such sulky blotch upon the prospect without a town. A blur +of soot and smoke, now confusedly tending this way, now that way, +now aspiring to the vault of Heaven, now murkily creeping along the +earth, as the wind rose and fell, or changed its quarter: a dense +formless jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, that showed +nothing but masses of darkness:- Coketown in the distance was +suggestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be seen. + +The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, +that it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there +never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of +Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to +pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been +flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send +labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were +appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such +inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified +in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly +undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make +quite so much smoke. Besides Mr. Bounderby's gold spoon which was +generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very +popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a +Coketowner felt he was ill-used - that is to say, whenever he was +not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him +accountable for the consequences of any of his acts - he was sure +to come out with the awful menace, that he would 'sooner pitch his +property into the Atlantic.' This had terrified the Home Secretary +within an inch of his life, on several occasions. + +However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that they +never had pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but, on the +contrary, had been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So +there it was, in the haze yonder; and it increased and multiplied. + +The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun was +so bright that it even shone through the heavy vapour drooping over +Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily. Stokers emerged +from low underground doorways into factory yards, and sat on steps, +and posts, and palings, wiping their swarthy visages, and +contemplating coals. The whole town seemed to be frying in oil. +There was a stifling smell of hot oil everywhere. The steam- +engines shone with it, the dresses of the Hands were soiled with +it, the mills throughout their many stories oozed and trickled it. +The atmosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the breath of the +simoom: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled languidly +in the desert. But no temperature made the melancholy mad +elephants more mad or more sane. Their wearisome heads went up and +down at the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet weather and +dry, fair weather and foul. The measured motion of their shadows +on the walls, was the substitute Coketown had to show for the +shadows of rustling woods; while, for the summer hum of insects, it +could offer, all the year round, from the dawn of Monday to the +night of Saturday, the whirr of shafts and wheels. + +Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the +passenger more sleepy and more hot as he passed the humming walls +of the mills. Sun-blinds, and sprinklings of water, a little +cooled the main streets and the shops; but the mills, and the +courts and alleys, baked at a fierce heat. Down upon the river +that was black and thick with dye, some Coketown boys who were at +large - a rare sight there - rowed a crazy boat, which made a +spumous track upon the water as it jogged along, while every dip of +an oar stirred up vile smells. But the sun itself, however +beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, +and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without +engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself +become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed +between it and the things it looks upon to bless. + +Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the Bank, on the +shadier side of the frying street. Office-hours were over: and at +that period of the day, in warm weather, she usually embellished +with her genteel presence, a managerial board-room over the public +office. Her own private sitting-room was a story higher, at the +window of which post of observation she was ready, every morning, +to greet Mr. Bounderby, as he came across the road, with the +sympathizing recognition appropriate to a Victim. He had been +married now a year; and Mrs. Sparsit had never released him from +her determined pity a moment. + +The Bank offered no violence to the wholesome monotony of the town. +It was another red brick house, with black outside shutters, green +inside blinds, a black street-door up two white steps, a brazen +door-plate, and a brazen door-handle full stop. It was a size +larger than Mr. Bounderby's house, as other houses were from a size +to half-a-dozen sizes smaller; in all other particulars, it was +strictly according to pattern. + +Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the evening-tide among +the desks and writing implements, she shed a feminine, not to say +also aristocratic, grace upon the office. Seated, with her +needlework or netting apparatus, at the window, she had a self- +laudatory sense of correcting, by her ladylike deportment, the rude +business aspect of the place. With this impression of her +interesting character upon her, Mrs. Sparsit considered herself, in +some sort, the Bank Fairy. The townspeople who, in their passing +and repassing, saw her there, regarded her as the Bank Dragon +keeping watch over the treasures of the mine. + +What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit knew as little as they did. +Gold and silver coin, precious paper, secrets that if divulged +would bring vague destruction upon vague persons (generally, +however, people whom she disliked), were the chief items in her +ideal catalogue thereof. For the rest, she knew that after office- +hours, she reigned supreme over all the office furniture, and over +a locked-up iron room with three locks, against the door of which +strong chamber the light porter laid his head every night, on a +truckle bed, that disappeared at cockcrow. Further, she was lady +paramount over certain vaults in the basement, sharply spiked off +from communication with the predatory world; and over the relics of +the current day's work, consisting of blots of ink, worn-out pens, +fragments of wafers, and scraps of paper torn so small, that +nothing interesting could ever be deciphered on them when Mrs. +Sparsit tried. Lastly, she was guardian over a little armoury of +cutlasses and carbines, arrayed in vengeful order above one of the +official chimney-pieces; and over that respectable tradition never +to be separated from a place of business claiming to be wealthy - a +row of fire-buckets - vessels calculated to be of no physical +utility on any occasion, but observed to exercise a fine moral +influence, almost equal to bullion, on most beholders. + +A deaf serving-woman and the light porter completed Mrs. Sparsit's +empire. The deaf serving-woman was rumoured to be wealthy; and a +saying had for years gone about among the lower orders of Coketown, +that she would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, for +the sake of her money. It was generally considered, indeed, that +she had been due some time, and ought to have fallen long ago; but +she had kept her life, and her situation, with an ill-conditioned +tenacity that occasioned much offence and disappointment. + +Mrs. Sparsit's tea was just set for her on a pert little table, +with its tripod of legs in an attitude, which she insinuated after +office-hours, into the company of the stern, leathern-topped, long +board-table that bestrode the middle of the room. The light porter +placed the tea-tray on it, knuckling his forehead as a form of +homage. + +'Thank you, Bitzer,' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Thank you, ma'am,' returned the light porter. He was a very light +porter indeed; as light as in the days when he blinkingly defined a +horse, for girl number twenty. + +'All is shut up, Bitzer?' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'All is shut up, ma'am.' + +'And what,' said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, 'is the news of +the day? Anything?' + +'Well, ma'am, I can't say that I have heard anything particular. +Our people are a bad lot, ma'am; but that is no news, +unfortunately.' + +'What are the restless wretches doing now?' asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Merely going on in the old way, ma'am. Uniting, and leaguing, and +engaging to stand by one another.' + +'It is much to be regretted,' said Mrs. Sparsit, making her nose +more Roman and her eyebrows more Coriolanian in the strength of her +severity, 'that the united masters allow of any such class- +combinations.' + +'Yes, ma'am,' said Bitzer. + +'Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces +against employing any man who is united with any other man,' said +Mrs. Sparsit. + +'They have done that, ma'am,' returned Bitzer; 'but it rather fell +through, ma'am.' + +'I do not pretend to understand these things,' said Mrs. Sparsit, +with dignity, 'my lot having been signally cast in a widely +different sphere; and Mr. Sparsit, as a Powler, being also quite +out of the pale of any such dissensions. I only know that these +people must be conquered, and that it's high time it was done, once +for all.' + +'Yes, ma'am,' returned Bitzer, with a demonstration of great +respect for Mrs. Sparsit's oracular authority. 'You couldn't put +it clearer, I am sure, ma'am.' + +As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential chat +with Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught her eye and seen +that she was going to ask him something, he made a pretence of +arranging the rulers, inkstands, and so forth, while that lady went +on with her tea, glancing through the open window, down into the +street. + +'Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?' asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average day.' He now and +then slided into my lady, instead of ma'am, as an involuntary +acknowledgment of Mrs. Sparsit's personal dignity and claims to +reverence. + +'The clerks,' said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an +imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left-hand mitten, +'are trustworthy, punctual, and industrious, of course?' + +'Yes, ma'am, pretty fair, ma'am. With the usual exception.' + +He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the +establishment, for which volunteer service he received a present at +Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an +extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe +to rise in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, that he +had no affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result +of the nicest and coldest calculation; and it was not without cause +that Mrs. Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young +man of the steadiest principle she had ever known. Having +satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his mother had a +right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had +asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to the +principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the workhouse +ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound +of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, because all gifts +have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and +secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity +would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, +and sell it for as much as he could possibly get; it having been +clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is comprised the +whole duty of man - not a part of man's duty, but the whole. + +'Pretty fair, ma'am. With the usual exception, ma'am,' repeated +Bitzer. + +'Ah - h!' said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over her tea-cup, and +taking a long gulp. + +'Mr. Thomas, ma'am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma'am, I don't +like his ways at all.' + +'Bitzer,' said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive manner, 'do you +recollect my having said anything to you respecting names?' + +'I beg your pardon, ma'am. It's quite true that you did object to +names being used, and they're always best avoided.' + +'Please to remember that I have a charge here,' said Mrs. Sparsit, +with her air of state. 'I hold a trust here, Bitzer, under Mr. +Bounderby. However improbable both Mr. Bounderby and myself might +have deemed it years ago, that he would ever become my patron, +making me an annual compliment, I cannot but regard him in that +light. From Mr. Bounderby I have received every acknowledgment of +my social station, and every recognition of my family descent, that +I could possibly expect. More, far more. Therefore, to my patron +I will be scrupulously true. And I do not consider, I will not +consider, I cannot consider,' said Mrs. Sparsit, with a most +extensive stock on hand of honour and morality, 'that I should be +scrupulously true, if I allowed names to be mentioned under this +roof, that are unfortunately - most unfortunately - no doubt of +that - connected with his.' + +Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and again begged pardon. + +'No, Bitzer,' continued Mrs. Sparsit, 'say an individual, and I +will hear you; say Mr. Thomas, and you must excuse me.' + +'With the usual exception, ma'am,' said Bitzer, trying back, 'of an +individual.' + +'Ah - h!' Mrs. Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the +head over her tea-cup, and the long gulp, as taking up the +conversation again at the point where it had been interrupted. + +'An individual, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'has never been what he ought +to have been, since he first came into the place. He is a +dissipated, extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma'am. +He wouldn't get it either, if he hadn't a friend and relation at +court, ma'am!' + +'Ah - h!' said Mrs. Sparsit, with another melancholy shake of her +head. + +'I only hope, ma'am,' pursued Bitzer, 'that his friend and relation +may not supply him with the means of carrying on. Otherwise, +ma'am, we know out of whose pocket that money comes.' + +'Ah - h!' sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with another melancholy shake +of her head. + +'He is to be pitied, ma'am. The last party I have alluded to, is +to be pitied, ma'am,' said Bitzer. + +'Yes, Bitzer,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'I have always pitied the +delusion, always.' + +'As to an individual, ma'am,' said Bitzer, dropping his voice and +drawing nearer, 'he is as improvident as any of the people in this +town. And you know what their improvidence is, ma'am. No one +could wish to know it better than a lady of your eminence does.' + +'They would do well,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'to take example by +you, Bitzer.' + +'Thank you, ma'am. But, since you do refer to me, now look at me, +ma'am. I have put by a little, ma'am, already. That gratuity +which I receive at Christmas, ma'am: I never touch it. I don't +even go the length of my wages, though they're not high, ma'am. +Why can't they do as I have done, ma'am? What one person can do, +another can do.' + +This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist +there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always +professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn't +each make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less +reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. +What I did you can do. Why don't you go and do it? + +'As to their wanting recreations, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'it's stuff +and nonsense. I don't want recreations. I never did, and I never +shall; I don't like 'em. As to their combining together; there are +many of them, I have no doubt, that by watching and informing upon +one another could earn a trifle now and then, whether in money or +good will, and improve their livelihood. Then, why don't they +improve it, ma'am! It's the first consideration of a rational +creature, and it's what they pretend to want.' + +'Pretend indeed!' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'I am sure we are constantly hearing, ma'am, till it becomes quite +nauseous, concerning their wives and families,' said Bitzer. 'Why +look at me, ma'am! I don't want a wife and family. Why should +they?' + +'Because they are improvident,' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Yes, ma'am,' returned Bitzer, 'that's where it is. If they were +more provident and less perverse, ma'am, what would they do? They +would say, "While my hat covers my family," or "while my bonnet +covers my family," - as the case might be, ma'am - "I have only one +to feed, and that's the person I most like to feed."' + +'To be sure,' assented Mrs. Sparsit, eating muffin. + +'Thank you, ma'am,' said Bitzer, knuckling his forehead again, in +return for the favour of Mrs. Sparsit's improving conversation. +'Would you wish a little more hot water, ma'am, or is there +anything else that I could fetch you?' + +'Nothing just now, Bitzer.' + +'Thank you, ma'am. I shouldn't wish to disturb you at your meals, +ma'am, particularly tea, knowing your partiality for it,' said +Bitzer, craning a little to look over into the street from where he +stood; 'but there's a gentleman been looking up here for a minute +or so, ma'am, and he has come across as if he was going to knock. +That is his knock, ma'am, no doubt.' + +He stepped to the window; and looking out, and drawing in his head +again, confirmed himself with, 'Yes, ma'am. Would you wish the +gentleman to be shown in, ma'am?' + +'I don't know who it can be,' said Mrs. Sparsit, wiping her mouth +and arranging her mittens. + +'A stranger, ma'am, evidently.' + +'What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time of the evening, +unless he comes upon some business for which he is too late, I +don't know,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'but I hold a charge in this +establishment from Mr. Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. +If to see him is any part of the duty I have accepted, I will see +him. Use your own discretion, Bitzer.' + +Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit's magnanimous +words, repeated his knock so loudly that the light porter hastened +down to open the door; while Mrs. Sparsit took the precaution of +concealing her little table, with all its appliances upon it, in a +cupboard, and then decamped up-stairs, that she might appear, if +needful, with the greater dignity. + +'If you please, ma'am, the gentleman would wish to see you,' said +Bitzer, with his light eye at Mrs. Sparsit's keyhole. So, Mrs. +Sparsit, who had improved the interval by touching up her cap, took +her classical features down-stairs again, and entered the board- +room in the manner of a Roman matron going outside the city walls +to treat with an invading general. + +The visitor having strolled to the window, and being then engaged +in looking carelessly out, was as unmoved by this impressive entry +as man could possibly be. He stood whistling to himself with all +imaginable coolness, with his hat still on, and a certain air of +exhaustion upon him, in part arising from excessive summer, and in +part from excessive gentility. For it was to be seen with half an +eye that he was a thorough gentleman, made to the model of the +time; weary of everything, and putting no more faith in anything +than Lucifer. + +'I believe, sir,' quoth Mrs. Sparsit, 'you wished to see me.' + +'I beg your pardon,' he said, turning and removing his hat; 'pray +excuse me.' + +'Humph!' thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she made a stately bend. 'Five +and thirty, good-looking, good figure, good teeth, good voice, good +breeding, well-dressed, dark hair, bold eyes.' All which Mrs. +Sparsit observed in her womanly way - like the Sultan who put his +head in the pail of water - merely in dipping down and coming up +again. + +'Please to be seated, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Thank you. Allow me.' He placed a chair for her, but remained +himself carelessly lounging against the table. 'I left my servant +at the railway looking after the luggage - very heavy train and +vast quantity of it in the van - and strolled on, looking about me. +Exceedingly odd place. Will you allow me to ask you if it's always +as black as this?' + +'In general much blacker,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, in her +uncompromising way. + +'Is it possible! Excuse me: you are not a native, I think?' + +'No, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'It was once my good or ill +fortune, as it may be - before I became a widow - to move in a very +different sphere. My husband was a Powler.' + +'Beg your pardon, really!' said the stranger. 'Was - ?' + +Mrs. Sparsit repeated, 'A Powler.' + +'Powler Family,' said the stranger, after reflecting a few moments. +Mrs. Sparsit signified assent. The stranger seemed a little more +fatigued than before. + +'You must be very much bored here?' was the inference he drew from +the communication. + +'I am the servant of circumstances, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'and I +have long adapted myself to the governing power of my life.' + +'Very philosophical,' returned the stranger, 'and very exemplary +and laudable, and - ' It seemed to be scarcely worth his while to +finish the sentence, so he played with his watch-chain wearily. + +'May I be permitted to ask, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'to what I am +indebted for the favour of - ' + +'Assuredly,' said the stranger. 'Much obliged to you for reminding +me. I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to Mr. Bounderby, +the banker. Walking through this extraordinarily black town, while +they were getting dinner ready at the hotel, I asked a fellow whom +I met; one of the working people; who appeared to have been taking +a shower-bath of something fluffy, which I assume to be the raw +material - ' + +Mrs. Sparsit inclined her head. + +' - Raw material - where Mr. Bounderby, the banker, might reside. +Upon which, misled no doubt by the word Banker, he directed me to +the Bank. Fact being, I presume, that Mr. Bounderby the Banker +does not reside in the edifice in which I have the honour of +offering this explanation?' + +'No, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'he does not.' + +'Thank you. I had no intention of delivering my letter at the +present moment, nor have I. But strolling on to the Bank to kill +time, and having the good fortune to observe at the window,' +towards which he languidly waved his hand, then slightly bowed, 'a +lady of a very superior and agreeable appearance, I considered that +I could not do better than take the liberty of asking that lady +where Mr. Bounderby the Banker does live. Which I accordingly +venture, with all suitable apologies, to do.' + +The inattention and indolence of his manner were sufficiently +relieved, to Mrs. Sparsit's thinking, by a certain gallantry at +ease, which offered her homage too. Here he was, for instance, at +this moment, all but sitting on the table, and yet lazily bending +over her, as if he acknowledged an attraction in her that made her +charming - in her way. + +'Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and officially must be,' +said the stranger, whose lightness and smoothness of speech were +pleasant likewise; suggesting matter far more sensible and humorous +than it ever contained - which was perhaps a shrewd device of the +founder of this numerous sect, whosoever may have been that great +man: 'therefore I may observe that my letter - here it is - is +from the member for this place - Gradgrind - whom I have had the +pleasure of knowing in London.' + +Mrs. Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated that such confirmation +was quite unnecessary, and gave Mr. Bounderby's address, with all +needful clues and directions in aid. + +'Thousand thanks,' said the stranger. 'Of course you know the +Banker well?' + +'Yes, sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. 'In my dependent relation +towards him, I have known him ten years.' + +'Quite an eternity! I think he married Gradgrind's daughter?' + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Sparsit, suddenly compressing her mouth, 'he had +that - honour.' + +'The lady is quite a philosopher, I am told?' + +'Indeed, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Is she?' + +'Excuse my impertinent curiosity,' pursued the stranger, fluttering +over Mrs. Sparsit's eyebrows, with a propitiatory air, 'but you +know the family, and know the world. I am about to know the +family, and may have much to do with them. Is the lady so very +alarming? Her father gives her such a portentously hard-headed +reputation, that I have a burning desire to know. Is she +absolutely unapproachable? Repellently and stunningly clever? I +see, by your meaning smile, you think not. You have poured balm +into my anxious soul. As to age, now. Forty? Five and thirty?' + +Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. 'A chit,' said she. 'Not twenty +when she was married.' + +'I give you my honour, Mrs. Powler,' returned the stranger, +detaching himself from the table, 'that I never was so astonished +in my life!' + +It really did seem to impress him, to the utmost extent of his +capacity of being impressed. He looked at his informant for full a +quarter of a minute, and appeared to have the surprise in his mind +all the time. 'I assure you, Mrs. Powler,' he then said, much +exhausted, 'that the father's manner prepared me for a grim and +stony maturity. I am obliged to you, of all things, for correcting +so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse my intrusion. Many thanks. Good +day!' + +He bowed himself out; and Mrs. Sparsit, hiding in the window +curtain, saw him languishing down the street on the shady side of +the way, observed of all the town. + +'What do you think of the gentleman, Bitzer?' she asked the light +porter, when he came to take away. + +'Spends a deal of money on his dress, ma'am.' + +'It must be admitted,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that it's very +tasteful.' + +'Yes, ma'am,' returned Bitzer, 'if that's worth the money.' + +'Besides which, ma'am,' resumed Bitzer, while he was polishing the +table, 'he looks to me as if he gamed.' + +'It's immoral to game,' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'It's ridiculous, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'because the chances are +against the players.' + +Whether it was that the heat prevented Mrs. Sparsit from working, +or whether it was that her hand was out, she did no work that +night. She sat at the window, when the sun began to sink behind +the smoke; she sat there, when the smoke was burning red, when the +colour faded from it, when darkness seemed to rise slowly out of +the ground, and creep upward, upward, up to the house-tops, up the +church steeple, up to the summits of the factory chimneys, up to +the sky. Without a candle in the room, Mrs. Sparsit sat at the +window, with her hands before her, not thinking much of the sounds +of evening; the whooping of boys, the barking of dogs, the rumbling +of wheels, the steps and voices of passengers, the shrill street +cries, the clogs upon the pavement when it was their hour for going +by, the shutting-up of shop-shutters. Not until the light porter +announced that her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit +arouse herself from her reverie, and convey her dense black +eyebrows - by that time creased with meditation, as if they needed +ironing out-up-stairs. + +'O, you Fool!' said Mrs. Sparsit, when she was alone at her supper. +Whom she meant, she did not say; but she could scarcely have meant +the sweetbread. + + + +CHAPTER II - MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE + + + +THE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the +Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist +recruits more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having +found out everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for +anything? + +Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime +height were attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked +fine gentlemen; they pretended that they did not, but they did. +They became exhausted in imitation of them; and they yaw-yawed in +their speech like them; and they served out, with an enervated air, +the little mouldy rations of political economy, on which they +regaled their disciples. There never before was seen on earth such +a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced. + +Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind +school, there was one of a good family and a better appearance, +with a happy turn of humour which had told immensely with the House +of Commons on the occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the +Board of Directors) view of a railway accident, in which the most +careful officers ever known, employed by the most liberal managers +ever heard of, assisted by the finest mechanical contrivances ever +devised, the whole in action on the best line ever constructed, had +killed five people and wounded thirty-two, by a casualty without +which the excellence of the whole system would have been positively +incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, and among the scattered +articles unowned, a widow's cap. And the honourable member had so +tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of humour) by putting +the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious +reference to the Coroner's Inquest, and brought the railway off +with Cheers and Laughter. + +Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better +appearance than himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of +Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the +train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had +then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone +yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere. To whom this +honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day, 'Jem, +there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want +men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics.' Jem, rather taken +by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as +ready to 'go in' for statistics as for anything else. So, he went +in. He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother +put it about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, 'If you want to +bring in, for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish +good speech, look after my brother Jem, for he's your man.' After +a few dashes in the public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council +of political sages approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him +down to Coketown, to become known there and in the neighbourhood. +Hence the letter Jem had last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which +Mr. Bounderby now held in his hand; superscribed, 'Josiah +Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. Specially to introduce James +Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.' + +Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James +Harthouse's card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the +Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, +in a state of mind so disconsolate, that he was already half- +disposed to 'go in' for something else. + +'My name, sir,' said his visitor, 'is Josiah Bounderby, of +Coketown.' + +Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely +looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected. + +'Coketown, sir,' said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, 'is +not the kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if +you will allow me - or whether you will or not, for I am a plain +man - I'll tell you something about it before we go any further.' + +Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. + +'Don't be too sure of that,' said Bounderby. 'I don't promise it. +First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and drink to us. +It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and +particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to +consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the +bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for +all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland.' + +By way of 'going in' to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, +'Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your +way of thinking. On conviction.' + +'I am glad to hear it,' said Bounderby. 'Now, you have heard a lot +of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very +good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work +there is, and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the best- +paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills +themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. +Which we're not a-going to do.' + +'Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.' + +'Lastly,' said Bounderby, 'as to our Hands. There's not a Hand in +this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object +in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with +a gold spoon. Now, they're not a-going - none of 'em - ever to be +fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now you know +the place.' + +Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed +and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown +question. + +'Why, you see,' replied Mr. Bounderby, 'it suits my disposition to +have a full understanding with a man, particularly with a public +man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to +say to you, Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with +which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my +friend Tom Gradgrind's letter of introduction. You are a man of +family. Don't you deceive yourself by supposing for a moment that +I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine +scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.' + +If anything could have exalted Jem's interest in Mr. Bounderby, it +would have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. + +'So now,' said Bounderby, 'we may shake hands on equal terms. I +say, equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact +depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any +man does, I am as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. +Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come +to how do you find yourself, and I hope you're pretty well.' + +The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook +hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received +the answer with favour. + +'Perhaps you know,' said he, 'or perhaps you don't know, I married +Tom Gradgrind's daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to +walk up town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom +Gradgrind's daughter.' + +'Mr. Bounderby,' said Jem, 'you anticipate my dearest wishes.' + +They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby piloted +the new acquaintance who so strongly contrasted with him, to the +private red brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the +green inside blinds, and the black street door up the two white +steps. In the drawing-room of which mansion, there presently +entered to them the most remarkable girl Mr. James Harthouse had +ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so careless; so +reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so +sensitively ashamed of her husband's braggart humility - from which +she shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it +was quite a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less +remarkable than in manner. Her features were handsome; but their +natural play was so locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess +at their genuine expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self- +reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with her +figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently quite +alone - it was of no use 'going in' yet awhile to comprehend this +girl, for she baffled all penetration. + +From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the house +itself. There was no mute sign of a woman in the room. No +graceful little adornment, no fanciful little device, however +trivial, anywhere expressed her influence. Cheerless and +comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich, there the room stared at +its present occupants, unsoftened and unrelieved by the least trace +of any womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood in the midst of +his household gods, so those unrelenting divinities occupied their +places around Mr. Bounderby, and they were worthy of one another, +and well matched. + +'This, sir,' said Bounderby, 'is my wife, Mrs. Bounderby: Tom +Gradgrind's eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. +Harthouse has joined your father's muster-roll. If he is not Tom +Gradgrind's colleague before long, I believe we shall at least hear +of him in connexion with one of our neighbouring towns. You +observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my junior. I don't know +what she saw in me to marry me, but she saw something in me, I +suppose, or she wouldn't have married me. She has lots of +expensive knowledge, sir, political and otherwise. If you want to +cram for anything, I should be troubled to recommend you to a +better adviser than Loo Bounderby.' + +To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more +likely to learn, Mr. Harthouse could never be recommended. + +'Come!' said his host. 'If you're in the complimentary line, +you'll get on here, for you'll meet with no competition. I have +never been in the way of learning compliments myself, and I don't +profess to understand the art of paying 'em. In fact, despise 'em. +But, your bringing-up was different from mine; mine was a real +thing, by George! You're a gentleman, and I don't pretend to be +one. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, and that's enough for me. +However, though I am not influenced by manners and station, Loo +Bounderby may be. She hadn't my advantages - disadvantages you +would call 'em, but I call 'em advantages - so you'll not waste +your power, I dare say.' + +'Mr. Bounderby,' said Jem, turning with a smile to Louisa, 'is a +noble animal in a comparatively natural state, quite free from the +harness in which a conventional hack like myself works.' + +'You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,' she quietly returned. 'It +is natural that you should.' + +He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who had seen so +much of the world, and thought, 'Now, how am I to take this?' + +'You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what Mr. +Bounderby has said, to the service of your country. You have made +up your mind,' said Louisa, still standing before him where she had +first stopped - in all the singular contrariety of her self- +possession, and her being obviously very ill at ease - 'to show the +nation the way out of all its difficulties.' + +'Mrs. Bounderby,' he returned, laughing, 'upon my honour, no. I +will make no such pretence to you. I have seen a little, here and +there, up and down; I have found it all to be very worthless, as +everybody has, and as some confess they have, and some do not; and +I am going in for your respected father's opinions - really because +I have no choice of opinions, and may as well back them as anything +else.' + +'Have you none of your own?' asked Louisa. + +'I have not so much as the slightest predilection left. I assure +you I attach not the least importance to any opinions. The result +of the varieties of boredom I have undergone, is a conviction +(unless conviction is too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment +I entertain on the subject), that any set of ideas will do just as +much good as any other set, and just as much harm as any other set. +There's an English family with a charming Italian motto. What will +be, will be. It's the only truth going!' + +This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty - a vice so +dangerous, so deadly, and so common - seemed, he observed, a little +to impress her in his favour. He followed up the advantage, by +saying in his pleasantest manner: a manner to which she might +attach as much or as little meaning as she pleased: 'The side that +can prove anything in a line of units, tens, hundreds, and +thousands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford the most fun, and +to give a man the best chance. I am quite as much attached to it +as if I believed it. I am quite ready to go in for it, to the same +extent as if I believed it. And what more could I possibly do, if +I did believe it!' + +'You are a singular politician,' said Louisa. + +'Pardon me; I have not even that merit. We are the largest party +in the state, I assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if we all fell out of +our adopted ranks and were reviewed together.' + +Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting in silence, +interposed here with a project for postponing the family dinner +till half-past six, and taking Mr. James Harthouse in the meantime +on a round of visits to the voting and interesting notabilities of +Coketown and its vicinity. The round of visits was made; and Mr. +James Harthouse, with a discreet use of his blue coaching, came off +triumphantly, though with a considerable accession of boredom. + +In the evening, he found the dinner-table laid for four, but they +sat down only three. It was an appropriate occasion for Mr. +Bounderby to discuss the flavour of the hap'orth of stewed eels he +had purchased in the streets at eight years old; and also of the +inferior water, specially used for laying the dust, with which he +had washed down that repast. He likewise entertained his guest +over the soup and fish, with the calculation that he (Bounderby) +had eaten in his youth at least three horses under the guise of +polonies and saveloys. These recitals, Jem, in a languid manner, +received with 'charming!' every now and then; and they probably +would have decided him to 'go in' for Jerusalem again to-morrow +morning, had he been less curious respecting Louisa. + +'Is there nothing,' he thought, glancing at her as she sat at the +head of the table, where her youthful figure, small and slight, but +very graceful, looked as pretty as it looked misplaced; 'is there +nothing that will move that face?' + +Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it was, in an +unexpected shape. Tom appeared. She changed as the door opened, +and broke into a beaming smile. + +A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not have thought so +much of it, but that he had wondered so long at her impassive face. +She put out her hand - a pretty little soft hand; and her fingers +closed upon her brother's, as if she would have carried them to her +lips. + +'Ay, ay?' thought the visitor. 'This whelp is the only creature +she cares for. So, so!' + +The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The appellation was +not flattering, but not unmerited. + +'When I was your age, young Tom,' said Bounderby, 'I was punctual, +or I got no dinner!' + +'When you were my age,' resumed Tom, 'you hadn't a wrong balance to +get right, and hadn't to dress afterwards.' + +'Never mind that now,' said Bounderby. + +'Well, then,' grumbled Tom. 'Don't begin with me.' + +'Mrs. Bounderby,' said Harthouse, perfectly hearing this under- +strain as it went on; 'your brother's face is quite familiar to me. +Can I have seen him abroad? Or at some public school, perhaps?' + +'No,' she resumed, quite interested, 'he has never been abroad yet, +and was educated here, at home. Tom, love, I am telling Mr. +Harthouse that he never saw you abroad.' + +'No such luck, sir,' said Tom. + +There was little enough in him to brighten her face, for he was a +sullen young fellow, and ungracious in his manner even to her. So +much the greater must have been the solitude of her heart, and her +need of some one on whom to bestow it. 'So much the more is this +whelp the only creature she has ever cared for,' thought Mr. James +Harthouse, turning it over and over. 'So much the more. So much +the more.' + +Both in his sister's presence, and after she had left the room, the +whelp took no pains to hide his contempt for Mr. Bounderby, +whenever he could indulge it without the observation of that +independent man, by making wry faces, or shutting one eye. Without +responding to these telegraphic communications, Mr. Harthouse +encouraged him much in the course of the evening, and showed an +unusual liking for him. At last, when he rose to return to his +hotel, and was a little doubtful whether he knew the way by night, +the whelp immediately proffered his services as guide, and turned +out with him to escort him thither. + + + +CHAPTER III - THE WHELP + + + +IT was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought +up under one continuous system of unnatural restraint, should be a +hypocrite; but it was certainly the case with Tom. It was very +strange that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own +guidance for five consecutive minutes, should be incapable at last +of governing himself; but so it was with Tom. It was altogether +unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination had been +strangled in his cradle, should be still inconvenienced by its +ghost in the form of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, +beyond all doubt, was Tom. + +'Do you smoke?' asked Mr. James Harthouse, when they came to the +hotel. + +'I believe you!' said Tom. + +He could do no less than ask Tom up; and Tom could do no less than +go up. What with a cooling drink adapted to the weather, but not +so weak as cool; and what with a rarer tobacco than was to be +bought in those parts; Tom was soon in a highly free and easy state +at his end of the sofa, and more than ever disposed to admire his +new friend at the other end. + +Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had been smoking a little while, +and took an observation of his friend. 'He don't seem to care +about his dress,' thought Tom, 'and yet how capitally he does it. +What an easy swell he is!' + +Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch Tom's eye, remarked that he +drank nothing, and filled his glass with his own negligent hand. + +'Thank'ee,' said Tom. 'Thank'ee. Well, Mr. Harthouse, I hope you +have had about a dose of old Bounderby to-night.' Tom said this +with one eye shut up again, and looking over his glass knowingly, +at his entertainer. + +'A very good fellow indeed!' returned Mr. James Harthouse. + +'You think so, don't you?' said Tom. And shut up his eye again. + +Mr. James Harthouse smiled; and rising from his end of the sofa, +and lounging with his back against the chimney-piece, so that he +stood before the empty fire-grate as he smoked, in front of Tom and +looking down at him, observed: + +'What a comical brother-in-law you are!' + +'What a comical brother-in-law old Bounderby is, I think you mean,' +said Tom. + +'You are a piece of caustic, Tom,' retorted Mr. James Harthouse. + +There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate with +such a waistcoat; in being called Tom, in such an intimate way, by +such a voice; in being on such off-hand terms so soon, with such a +pair of whiskers; that Tom was uncommonly pleased with himself. + +'Oh! I don't care for old Bounderby,' said he, 'if you mean that. +I have always called old Bounderby by the same name when I have +talked about him, and I have always thought of him in the same way. +I am not going to begin to be polite now, about old Bounderby. It +would be rather late in the day.' + +'Don't mind me,' returned James; 'but take care when his wife is +by, you know.' + +'His wife?' said Tom. 'My sister Loo? O yes!' And he laughed, +and took a little more of the cooling drink. + +James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same place and attitude, +smoking his cigar in his own easy way, and looking pleasantly at +the whelp, as if he knew himself to be a kind of agreeable demon +who had only to hover over him, and he must give up his whole soul +if required. It certainly did seem that the whelp yielded to this +influence. He looked at his companion sneakingly, he looked at him +admiringly, he looked at him boldly, and put up one leg on the +sofa. + +'My sister Loo?' said Tom. 'She never cared for old Bounderby.' + +'That's the past tense, Tom,' returned Mr. James Harthouse, +striking the ash from his cigar with his little finger. 'We are in +the present tense, now.' + +'Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, present tense. First +person singular, I do not care; second person singular, thou dost +not care; third person singular, she does not care,' returned Tom. + +'Good! Very quaint!' said his friend. 'Though you don't mean it.' + +'But I do mean it,' cried Tom. 'Upon my honour! Why, you won't +tell me, Mr. Harthouse, that you really suppose my sister Loo does +care for old Bounderby.' + +'My dear fellow,' returned the other, 'what am I bound to suppose, +when I find two married people living in harmony and happiness?' + +Tom had by this time got both his legs on the sofa. If his second +leg had not been already there when he was called a dear fellow, he +would have put it up at that great stage of the conversation. +Feeling it necessary to do something then, he stretched himself out +at greater length, and, reclining with the back of his head on the +end of the sofa, and smoking with an infinite assumption of +negligence, turned his common face, and not too sober eyes, towards +the face looking down upon him so carelessly yet so potently. + +'You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom, 'and therefore, +you needn't be surprised that Loo married old Bounderby. She never +had a lover, and the governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took +him.' + +'Very dutiful in your interesting sister,' said Mr. James +Harthouse. + +'Yes, but she wouldn't have been as dutiful, and it would not have +come off as easily,' returned the whelp, 'if it hadn't been for +me.' + +The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows; but the whelp was obliged +to go on. + +'I persuaded her,' he said, with an edifying air of superiority. +'I was stuck into old Bounderby's bank (where I never wanted to +be), and I knew I should get into scrapes there, if she put old +Bounderby's pipe out; so I told her my wishes, and she came into +them. She would do anything for me. It was very game of her, +wasn't it?' + +'It was charming, Tom!' + +'Not that it was altogether so important to her as it was to me,' +continued Tom coolly, 'because my liberty and comfort, and perhaps +my getting on, depended on it; and she had no other lover, and +staying at home was like staying in jail - especially when I was +gone. It wasn't as if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby; +but still it was a good thing in her.' + +'Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so placidly.' + +'Oh,' returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, 'she's a regular +girl. A girl can get on anywhere. She has settled down to the +life, and she don't mind. It does just as well as another. +Besides, though Loo is a girl, she's not a common sort of girl. +She can shut herself up within herself, and think - as I have often +known her sit and watch the fire - for an hour at a stretch.' + +'Ay, ay? Has resources of her own,' said Harthouse, smoking +quietly. + +'Not so much of that as you may suppose,' returned Tom; 'for our +governor had her crammed with all sorts of dry bones and sawdust. +It's his system.' + +'Formed his daughter on his own model?' suggested Harthouse. + +'His daughter? Ah! and everybody else. Why, he formed Me that +way!' said Tom. + +'Impossible!' + +'He did, though,' said Tom, shaking his head. 'I mean to say, Mr. +Harthouse, that when I first left home and went to old Bounderby's, +I was as flat as a warming-pan, and knew no more about life, than +any oyster does.' + +'Come, Tom! I can hardly believe that. A joke's a joke.' + +'Upon my soul!' said the whelp. 'I am serious; I am indeed!' He +smoked with great gravity and dignity for a little while, and then +added, in a highly complacent tone, 'Oh! I have picked up a little +since. I don't deny that. But I have done it myself; no thanks to +the governor.' + +'And your intelligent sister?' + +'My intelligent sister is about where she was. She used to +complain to me that she had nothing to fall back upon, that girls +usually fall back upon; and I don't see how she is to have got over +that since. But she don't mind,' he sagaciously added, puffing at +his cigar again. 'Girls can always get on, somehow.' + +'Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, for Mr. Bounderby's +address, I found an ancient lady there, who seems to entertain +great admiration for your sister,' observed Mr. James Harthouse, +throwing away the last small remnant of the cigar he had now smoked +out. + +'Mother Sparsit!' said Tom. 'What! you have seen her already, have +you?' + +His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar out of his mouth, to shut up +his eye (which had grown rather unmanageable) with the greater +expression, and to tap his nose several times with his finger. + +'Mother Sparsit's feeling for Loo is more than admiration, I should +think,' said Tom. 'Say affection and devotion. Mother Sparsit +never set her cap at Bounderby when he was a bachelor. Oh no!' + +These were the last words spoken by the whelp, before a giddy +drowsiness came upon him, followed by complete oblivion. He was +roused from the latter state by an uneasy dream of being stirred up +with a boot, and also of a voice saying: 'Come, it's late. Be +off!' + +'Well!' he said, scrambling from the sofa. 'I must take my leave +of you though. I say. Yours is very good tobacco. But it's too +mild.' + +'Yes, it's too mild,' returned his entertainer. + +'It's - it's ridiculously mild,' said Tom. 'Where's the door! +Good night!' + +He had another odd dream of being taken by a waiter through a +mist, which, after giving him some trouble and difficulty, resolved +itself into the main street, in which he stood alone. He then +walked home pretty easily, though not yet free from an impression +of the presence and influence of his new friend - as if he were +lounging somewhere in the air, in the same negligent attitude, +regarding him with the same look. + +The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense of +what he had done that night, and had been less of a whelp and more +of a brother, he might have turned short on the road, might have +gone down to the ill-smelling river that was dyed black, might have +gone to bed in it for good and all, and have curtained his head for +ever with its filthy waters. + + + +CHAPTER IV - MEN AND BROTHERS + + + +'OH, my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my +friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a +grinding despotism! Oh, my friends and fellow-sufferers, and +fellow-workmen, and fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come, +when we must rally round one another as One united power, and +crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have battened upon +the plunder of our families, upon the sweat of our brows, upon the +labour of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon the God- +created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon the holy and eternal +privileges of Brotherhood!' + +'Good!' 'Hear, hear, hear!' 'Hurrah!' and other cries, arose in +many voices from various parts of the densely crowded and +suffocatingly close Hall, in which the orator, perched on a stage, +delivered himself of this and what other froth and fume he had in +him. He had declaimed himself into a violent heat, and was as +hoarse as he was hot. By dint of roaring at the top of his voice +under a flaring gaslight, clenching his fists, knitting his brows, +setting his teeth, and pounding with his arms, he had taken so much +out of himself by this time, that he was brought to a stop, and +called for a glass of water. + +As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with his drink +of water, the comparison between the orator and the crowd of +attentive faces turned towards him, was extremely to his +disadvantage. Judging him by Nature's evidence, he was above the +mass in very little but the stage on which he stood. In many great +respects he was essentially below them. He was not so honest, he +was not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; he substituted +cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe solid +sense. An ill-made, high-shouldered man, with lowering brows, and +his features crushed into an habitually sour expression, he +contrasted most unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the +great body of his hearers in their plain working clothes. Strange +as it always is to consider any assembly in the act of submissively +resigning itself to the dreariness of some complacent person, lord +or commoner, whom three-fourths of it could, by no human means, +raise out of the slough of inanity to their own intellectual level, +it was particularly strange, and it was even particularly +affecting, to see this crowd of earnest faces, whose honesty in the +main no competent observer free from bias could doubt, so agitated +by such a leader. + +Good! Hear, hear! Hurrah! The eagerness both of attention and +intention, exhibited in all the countenances, made them a most +impressive sight. There was no carelessness, no languor, no idle +curiosity; none of the many shades of indifference to be seen in +all other assemblies, visible for one moment there. That every man +felt his condition to be, somehow or other, worse than it might be; +that every man considered it incumbent on him to join the rest, +towards the making of it better; that every man felt his only hope +to be in his allying himself to the comrades by whom he was +surrounded; and that in this belief, right or wrong (unhappily +wrong then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, +faithfully in earnest; must have been as plain to any one who chose +to see what was there, as the bare beams of the roof and the +whitened brick walls. Nor could any such spectator fail to know in +his own breast, that these men, through their very delusions, +showed great qualities, susceptible of being turned to the happiest +and best account; and that to pretend (on the strength of sweeping +axioms, howsoever cut and dried) that they went astray wholly +without cause, and of their own irrational wills, was to pretend +that there could be smoke without fire, death without birth, +harvest without seed, anything or everything produced from nothing. + +The orator having refreshed himself, wiped his corrugated forehead +from left to right several times with his handkerchief folded into +a pad, and concentrated all his revived forces, in a sneer of great +disdain and bitterness. + +'But oh, my friends and brothers! Oh, men and Englishmen, the +down-trodden operatives of Coketown! What shall we say of that man +- that working-man, that I should find it necessary so to libel the +glorious name - who, being practically and well acquainted with the +grievances and wrongs of you, the injured pith and marrow of this +land, and having heard you, with a noble and majestic unanimity +that will make Tyrants tremble, resolve for to subscribe to the +funds of the United Aggregate Tribunal, and to abide by the +injunctions issued by that body for your benefit, whatever they may +be - what, I ask you, will you say of that working-man, since such +I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his +post, and sells his flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and +a craven and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to +make to you the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold +himself aloof, and will not be one of those associated in the +gallant stand for Freedom and for Right?' + +The assembly was divided at this point. There were some groans and +hisses, but the general sense of honour was much too strong for the +condemnation of a man unheard. 'Be sure you're right, +Slackbridge!' 'Put him up!' 'Let's hear him!' Such things were +said on many sides. Finally, one strong voice called out, 'Is the +man heer? If the man's heer, Slackbridge, let's hear the man +himseln, 'stead o' yo.' Which was received with a round of +applause. + +Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a withering smile; +and, holding out his right hand at arm's length (as the manner of +all Slackbridges is), to still the thundering sea, waited until +there was a profound silence. + +'Oh, my friends and fellow-men!' said Slackbridge then, shaking his +head with violent scorn, 'I do not wonder that you, the prostrate +sons of labour, are incredulous of the existence of such a man. +But he who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and +Judas Iscariot existed, and Castlereagh existed, and this man +exists!' + +Here, a brief press and confusion near the stage, ended in the man +himself standing at the orator's side before the concourse. He was +pale and a little moved in the face - his lips especially showed +it; but he stood quiet, with his left hand at his chin, waiting to +be heard. There was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and +this functionary now took the case into his own hands. + +'My friends,' said he, 'by virtue o' my office as your president, I +askes o' our friend Slackbridge, who may be a little over hetter in +this business, to take his seat, whiles this man Stephen Blackpool +is heern. You all know this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him +awlung o' his misfort'ns, and his good name.' + +With that, the chairman shook him frankly by the hand, and sat down +again. Slackbridge likewise sat down, wiping his hot forehead - +always from left to right, and never the reverse way. + +'My friends,' Stephen began, in the midst of a dead calm; 'I ha' +hed what's been spok'n o' me, and 'tis lickly that I shan't mend +it. But I'd liefer you'd hearn the truth concernin myseln, fro my +lips than fro onny other man's, though I never cud'n speak afore so +monny, wi'out bein moydert and muddled.' + +Slackbridge shook his head as if he would shake it off, in his +bitterness. + +'I'm th' one single Hand in Bounderby's mill, o' a' the men theer, +as don't coom in wi' th' proposed reg'lations. I canna coom in wi' +'em. My friends, I doubt their doin' yo onny good. Licker they'll +do yo hurt.' + +Slackbridge laughed, folded his arms, and frowned sarcastically. + +'But 't an't sommuch for that as I stands out. If that were aw, +I'd coom in wi' th' rest. But I ha' my reasons - mine, yo see - +for being hindered; not on'y now, but awlus - awlus - life long!' + +Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside him, gnashing and tearing. +'Oh, my friends, what but this did I tell you? Oh, my fellow- +countrymen, what warning but this did I give you? And how shows +this recreant conduct in a man on whom unequal laws are known to +have fallen heavy? Oh, you Englishmen, I ask you how does this +subornation show in one of yourselves, who is thus consenting to +his own undoing and to yours, and to your children's and your +children's children's?' + +There was some applause, and some crying of Shame upon the man; but +the greater part of the audience were quiet. They looked at +Stephen's worn face, rendered more pathetic by the homely emotions +it evinced; and, in the kindness of their nature, they were more +sorry than indignant. + +''Tis this Delegate's trade for t' speak,' said Stephen, 'an' he's +paid for 't, an' he knows his work. Let him keep to 't. Let him +give no heed to what I ha had'n to bear. That's not for him. +That's not for nobbody but me.' + +There was a propriety, not to say a dignity in these words, that +made the hearers yet more quiet and attentive. The same strong +voice called out, 'Slackbridge, let the man be heern, and howd thee +tongue!' Then the place was wonderfully still. + +'My brothers,' said Stephen, whose low voice was distinctly heard, +'and my fellow-workmen - for that yo are to me, though not, as I +knows on, to this delegate here - I ha but a word to sen, and I +could sen nommore if I was to speak till Strike o' day. I know +weel, aw what's afore me. I know weel that yo aw resolve to ha +nommore ado wi' a man who is not wi' yo in this matther. I know +weel that if I was a lyin parisht i' th' road, yo'd feel it right +to pass me by, as a forrenner and stranger. What I ha getn, I mun +mak th' best on.' + +'Stephen Blackpool,' said the chairman, rising, 'think on 't agen. +Think on 't once agen, lad, afore thou'rt shunned by aw owd +friends.' + +There was an universal murmur to the same effect, though no man +articulated a word. Every eye was fixed on Stephen's face. To +repent of his determination, would be to take a load from all their +minds. He looked around him, and knew that it was so. Not a grain +of anger with them was in his heart; he knew them, far below their +surface weaknesses and misconceptions, as no one but their fellow- +labourer could. + +'I ha thowt on 't, above a bit, sir. I simply canna coom in. I +mun go th' way as lays afore me. I mun tak my leave o' aw heer.' + +He made a sort of reverence to them by holding up his arms, and +stood for the moment in that attitude; not speaking until they +slowly dropped at his sides. + +'Monny's the pleasant word as soom heer has spok'n wi' me; monny's +the face I see heer, as I first seen when I were yoong and lighter +heart'n than now. I ha' never had no fratch afore, sin ever I were +born, wi' any o' my like; Gonnows I ha' none now that's o' my +makin'. Yo'll ca' me traitor and that - yo I mean t' say,' +addressing Slackbridge, 'but 'tis easier to ca' than mak' out. So +let be.' + +He had moved away a pace or two to come down from the platform, +when he remembered something he had not said, and returned again. + +'Haply,' he said, turning his furrowed face slowly about, that he +might as it were individually address the whole audience, those +both near and distant; 'haply, when this question has been tak'n up +and discoosed, there'll be a threat to turn out if I'm let to work +among yo. I hope I shall die ere ever such a time cooms, and I +shall work solitary among yo unless it cooms - truly, I mun do 't, +my friends; not to brave yo, but to live. I ha nobbut work to live +by; and wheerever can I go, I who ha worked sin I were no heighth +at aw, in Coketown heer? I mak' no complaints o' bein turned to +the wa', o' bein outcasten and overlooken fro this time forrard, +but hope I shall be let to work. If there is any right for me at +aw, my friends, I think 'tis that.' + +Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was audible in the building, +but the slight rustle of men moving a little apart, all along the +centre of the room, to open a means of passing out, to the man with +whom they had all bound themselves to renounce companionship. +Looking at no one, and going his way with a lowly steadiness upon +him that asserted nothing and sought nothing, Old Stephen, with all +his troubles on his head, left the scene. + +Then Slackbridge, who had kept his oratorical arm extended during +the going out, as if he were repressing with infinite solicitude +and by a wonderful moral power the vehement passions of the +multitude, applied himself to raising their spirits. Had not the +Roman Brutus, oh, my British countrymen, condemned his son to +death; and had not the Spartan mothers, oh my soon to be victorious +friends, driven their flying children on the points of their +enemies' swords? Then was it not the sacred duty of the men of +Coketown, with forefathers before them, an admiring world in +company with them, and a posterity to come after them, to hurl out +traitors from the tents they had pitched in a sacred and a God-like +cause? The winds of heaven answered Yes; and bore Yes, east, west, +north, and south. And consequently three cheers for the United +Aggregate Tribunal! + +Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. The multitude of +doubtful faces (a little conscience-stricken) brightened at the +sound, and took it up. Private feeling must yield to the common +cause. Hurrah! The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when the +assembly dispersed. + +Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, +the life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The stranger in the +land who looks into ten thousand faces for some answering look and +never finds it, is in cheering society as compared with him who +passes ten averted faces daily, that were once the countenances of +friends. Such experience was to be Stephen's now, in every waking +moment of his life; at his work, on his way to it and from it, at +his door, at his window, everywhere. By general consent, they even +avoided that side of the street on which he habitually walked; and +left it, of all the working men, to him only. + +He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but +little with other men, and used to companionship with his own +thoughts. He had never known before the strength of the want in +his heart for the frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or +the immense amount of relief that had been poured into it by drops +through such small means. It was even harder than he could have +believed possible, to separate in his own conscience his +abandonment by all his fellows from a baseless sense of shame and +disgrace. + +The first four days of his endurance were days so long and heavy, +that he began to be appalled by the prospect before him. Not only +did he see no Rachael all the time, but he avoided every chance of +seeing her; for, although he knew that the prohibition did not yet +formally extend to the women working in the factories, he found +that some of them with whom he was acquainted were changed to him, +and he feared to try others, and dreaded that Rachael might be even +singled out from the rest if she were seen in his company. So, he +had been quite alone during the four days, and had spoken to no +one, when, as he was leaving his work at night, a young man of a +very light complexion accosted him in the street. + +'Your name's Blackpool, ain't it?' said the young man. + +Stephen coloured to find himself with his hat in his hand, in his +gratitude for being spoken to, or in the suddenness of it, or both. +He made a feint of adjusting the lining, and said, 'Yes.' + +'You are the Hand they have sent to Coventry, I mean?' said Bitzer, +the very light young man in question. + +Stephen answered 'Yes,' again. + +'I supposed so, from their all appearing to keep away from you. +Mr. Bounderby wants to speak to you. You know his house, don't +you?' + +Stephen said 'Yes,' again. + +'Then go straight up there, will you?' said Bitzer. 'You're +expected, and have only to tell the servant it's you. I belong to +the Bank; so, if you go straight up without me (I was sent to fetch +you), you'll save me a walk.' + +Stephen, whose way had been in the contrary direction, turned +about, and betook himself as in duty bound, to the red brick castle +of the giant Bounderby. + + + +CHAPTER V - MEN AND MASTERS + + + +'WELL, Stephen,' said Bounderby, in his windy manner, 'what's this +I hear? What have these pests of the earth been doing to you? +Come in, and speak up.' + +It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden. A tea-table +was set out; and Mr. Bounderby's young wife, and her brother, and a +great gentleman from London, were present. To whom Stephen made +his obeisance, closing the door and standing near it, with his hat +in his hand. + +'This is the man I was telling you about, Harthouse,' said Mr. +Bounderby. The gentleman he addressed, who was talking to Mrs. +Bounderby on the sofa, got up, saying in an indolent way, 'Oh +really?' and dawdled to the hearthrug where Mr. Bounderby stood. + +'Now,' said Bounderby, 'speak up!' + +After the four days he had passed, this address fell rudely and +discordantly on Stephen's ear. Besides being a rough handling of +his wounded mind, it seemed to assume that he really was the self- +interested deserter he had been called. + +'What were it, sir,' said Stephen, 'as yo were pleased to want wi' +me?' + +'Why, I have told you,' returned Bounderby. 'Speak up like a man, +since you are a man, and tell us about yourself and this +Combination.' + +'Wi' yor pardon, sir,' said Stephen Blackpool, 'I ha' nowt to sen +about it.' + +Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a Wind, finding +something in his way here, began to blow at it directly. + +'Now, look here, Harthouse,' said he, 'here's a specimen of 'em. +When this man was here once before, I warned this man against the +mischievous strangers who are always about - and who ought to be +hanged wherever they are found - and I told this man that he was +going in the wrong direction. Now, would you believe it, that +although they have put this mark upon him, he is such a slave to +them still, that he's afraid to open his lips about them?' + +'I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir; not as I was fearfo' o' openin' +my lips.' + +'You said! Ah! I know what you said; more than that, I know what +you mean, you see. Not always the same thing, by the Lord Harry! +Quite different things. You had better tell us at once, that that +fellow Slackbridge is not in the town, stirring up the people to +mutiny; and that he is not a regular qualified leader of the +people: that is, a most confounded scoundrel. You had better tell +us so at once; you can't deceive me. You want to tell us so. Why +don't you?' + +'I'm as sooary as yo, sir, when the people's leaders is bad,' said +Stephen, shaking his head. 'They taks such as offers. Haply 'tis +na' the sma'est o' their misfortuns when they can get no better.' + +The wind began to get boisterous. + +'Now, you'll think this pretty well, Harthouse,' said Mr. +Bounderby. 'You'll think this tolerably strong. You'll say, upon +my soul this is a tidy specimen of what my friends have to deal +with; but this is nothing, sir! You shall hear me ask this man a +question. Pray, Mr. Blackpool' - wind springing up very fast - +'may I take the liberty of asking you how it happens that you +refused to be in this Combination?' + +'How 't happens?' + +'Ah!' said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the arms of his coat, +and jerking his head and shutting his eyes in confidence with the +opposite wall: 'how it happens.' + +'I'd leefer not coom to 't, sir; but sin you put th' question - an' +not want'n t' be ill-manner'n - I'll answer. I ha passed a +promess.' + +'Not to me, you know,' said Bounderby. (Gusty weather with +deceitful calms. One now prevailing.) + +'O no, sir. Not to yo.' + +'As for me, any consideration for me has had just nothing at all to +do with it,' said Bounderby, still in confidence with the wall. +'If only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown had been in question, you +would have joined and made no bones about it?' + +'Why yes, sir. 'Tis true.' + +'Though he knows,' said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing a gale, 'that +there are a set of rascals and rebels whom transportation is too +good for! Now, Mr. Harthouse, you have been knocking about in the +world some time. Did you ever meet with anything like that man out +of this blessed country?' And Mr. Bounderby pointed him out for +inspection, with an angry finger. + +'Nay, ma'am,' said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against +the words that had been used, and instinctively addressing himself +to Louisa, after glancing at her face. 'Not rebels, nor yet +rascals. Nowt o' th' kind, ma'am, nowt o' th' kind. They've not +doon me a kindness, ma'am, as I know and feel. But there's not a +dozen men amoong 'em, ma'am - a dozen? Not six - but what believes +as he has doon his duty by the rest and by himseln. God forbid as +I, that ha' known, and had'n experience o' these men aw my life - +I, that ha' ett'n an' droonken wi' 'em, an' seet'n wi' 'em, and +toil'n wi' 'em, and lov'n 'em, should fail fur to stan by 'em wi' +the truth, let 'em ha' doon to me what they may!' + +He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and character - +deepened perhaps by a proud consciousness that he was faithful to +his class under all their mistrust; but he fully remembered where +he was, and did not even raise his voice. + +'No, ma'am, no. They're true to one another, faithfo' to one +another, 'fectionate to one another, e'en to death. Be poor amoong +'em, be sick amoong 'em, grieve amoong 'em for onny o' th' monny +causes that carries grief to the poor man's door, an' they'll be +tender wi' yo, gentle wi' yo, comfortable wi' yo, Chrisen wi' yo. +Be sure o' that, ma'am. They'd be riven to bits, ere ever they'd +be different.' + +'In short,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'it's because they are so full of +virtues that they have turned you adrift. Go through with it while +you are about it. Out with it.' + +'How 'tis, ma'am,' resumed Stephen, appearing still to find his +natural refuge in Louisa's face, 'that what is best in us fok, +seems to turn us most to trouble an' misfort'n an' mistake, I +dunno. But 'tis so. I know 'tis, as I know the heavens is over me +ahint the smoke. We're patient too, an' wants in general to do +right. An' I canna think the fawt is aw wi' us.' + +'Now, my friend,' said Mr. Bounderby, whom he could not have +exasperated more, quite unconscious of it though he was, than by +seeming to appeal to any one else, 'if you will favour me with your +attention for half a minute, I should like to have a word or two +with you. You said just now, that you had nothing to tell us about +this business. You are quite sure of that before we go any +further.' + +'Sir, I am sure on 't.' + +'Here's a gentleman from London present,' Mr. Bounderby made a +backhanded point at Mr. James Harthouse with his thumb, 'a +Parliament gentleman. I should like him to hear a short bit of +dialogue between you and me, instead of taking the substance of it +- for I know precious well, beforehand, what it will be; nobody +knows better than I do, take notice! - instead of receiving it on +trust from my mouth.' + +Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed a +rather more troubled mind than usual. He turned his eyes +involuntarily to his former refuge, but at a look from that quarter +(expressive though instantaneous) he settled them on Mr. +Bounderby's face. + +'Now, what do you complain of?' asked Mr. Bounderby. + +'I ha' not coom here, sir,' Stephen reminded him, 'to complain. I +coom for that I were sent for.' + +'What,' repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, 'do you people, +in a general way, complain of?' + +Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment, +and then seemed to make up his mind. + +'Sir, I were never good at showin o 't, though I ha had'n my share +in feeling o 't. 'Deed we are in a muddle, sir. Look round town - +so rich as 'tis - and see the numbers o' people as has been +broughten into bein heer, fur to weave, an' to card, an' to piece +out a livin', aw the same one way, somehows, 'twixt their cradles +and their graves. Look how we live, an' wheer we live, an' in what +numbers, an' by what chances, and wi' what sameness; and look how +the mills is awlus a goin, and how they never works us no nigher to +ony dis'ant object - ceptin awlus, Death. Look how you considers +of us, and writes of us, and talks of us, and goes up wi' yor +deputations to Secretaries o' State 'bout us, and how yo are awlus +right, and how we are awlus wrong, and never had'n no reason in us +sin ever we were born. Look how this ha growen an' growen, sir, +bigger an' bigger, broader an' broader, harder an' harder, fro year +to year, fro generation unto generation. Who can look on 't, sir, +and fairly tell a man 'tis not a muddle?' + +'Of course,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Now perhaps you'll let the +gentleman know, how you would set this muddle (as you're so fond of +calling it) to rights.' + +'I donno, sir. I canna be expecten to 't. 'Tis not me as should +be looken to for that, sir. 'Tis them as is put ower me, and ower +aw the rest of us. What do they tak upon themseln, sir, if not to +do't?' + +'I'll tell you something towards it, at any rate,' returned Mr. +Bounderby. 'We will make an example of half a dozen Slackbridges. +We'll indict the blackguards for felony, and get 'em shipped off to +penal settlements.' + +Stephen gravely shook his head. + +'Don't tell me we won't, man,' said Mr. Bounderby, by this time +blowing a hurricane, 'because we will, I tell you!' + +'Sir,' returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence of absolute +certainty, 'if yo was t' tak a hundred Slackbridges - aw as there +is, and aw the number ten times towd - an' was t' sew 'em up in +separate sacks, an' sink 'em in the deepest ocean as were made ere +ever dry land coom to be, yo'd leave the muddle just wheer 'tis. +Mischeevous strangers!' said Stephen, with an anxious smile; 'when +ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever we can call to mind, o' th' +mischeevous strangers! 'Tis not by them the trouble's made, sir. +'Tis not wi' them 't commences. I ha no favour for 'em - I ha no +reason to favour 'em - but 'tis hopeless and useless to dream o' +takin them fro their trade, 'stead o' takin their trade fro them! +Aw that's now about me in this room were heer afore I coom, an' +will be heer when I am gone. Put that clock aboard a ship an' pack +it off to Norfolk Island, an' the time will go on just the same. +So 'tis wi' Slackbridge every bit.' + +Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he observed a +cautionary movement of her eyes towards the door. Stepping back, +he put his hand upon the lock. But he had not spoken out of his +own will and desire; and he felt it in his heart a noble return for +his late injurious treatment to be faithful to the last to those +who had repudiated him. He stayed to finish what was in his mind. + +'Sir, I canna, wi' my little learning an' my common way, tell the +genelman what will better aw this - though some working men o' this +town could, above my powers - but I can tell him what I know will +never do 't. The strong hand will never do 't. Vict'ry and +triumph will never do 't. Agreeing fur to mak one side unnat'rally +awlus and for ever right, and toother side unnat'rally awlus and +for ever wrong, will never, never do 't. Nor yet lettin alone will +never do 't. Let thousands upon thousands alone, aw leading the +like lives and aw faw'en into the like muddle, and they will be as +one, and yo will be as anoother, wi' a black unpassable world +betwixt yo, just as long or short a time as sich-like misery can +last. Not drawin nigh to fok, wi' kindness and patience an' cheery +ways, that so draws nigh to one another in their monny troubles, +and so cherishes one another in their distresses wi' what they need +themseln - like, I humbly believe, as no people the genelman ha +seen in aw his travels can beat - will never do 't till th' Sun +turns t' ice. Most o' aw, rating 'em as so much Power, and +reg'latin 'em as if they was figures in a soom, or machines: +wi'out loves and likens, wi'out memories and inclinations, wi'out +souls to weary and souls to hope - when aw goes quiet, draggin on +wi' 'em as if they'd nowt o' th' kind, and when aw goes onquiet, +reproachin 'em for their want o' sitch humanly feelins in their +dealins wi' yo - this will never do 't, sir, till God's work is +onmade.' + +Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting to know if +anything more were expected of him. + +'Just stop a moment,' said Mr. Bounderby, excessively red in the +face. 'I told you, the last time you were here with a grievance, +that you had better turn about and come out of that. And I also +told you, if you remember, that I was up to the gold spoon look- +out.' + +'I were not up to 't myseln, sir; I do assure yo.' + +'Now it's clear to me,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'that you are one of +those chaps who have always got a grievance. And you go about, +sowing it and raising crops. That's the business of your life, my +friend.' + +Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed he had other +business to do for his life. + +'You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-conditioned chap, you see,' +said Mr. Bounderby, 'that even your own Union, the men who know you +best, will have nothing to do with you. I never thought those +fellows could be right in anything; but I tell you what! I so far +go along with them for a novelty, that I'll have nothing to do with +you either.' + +Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face. + +'You can finish off what you're at,' said Mr. Bounderby, with a +meaning nod, 'and then go elsewhere.' + +'Sir, yo know weel,' said Stephen expressively, 'that if I canna +get work wi' yo, I canna get it elsewheer.' + +The reply was, 'What I know, I know; and what you know, you know. +I have no more to say about it.' + +Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were raised to his no +more; therefore, with a sigh, and saying, barely above his breath, +'Heaven help us aw in this world!' he departed. + + + +CHAPTER VI - FADING AWAY + + + +IT was falling dark when Stephen came out of Mr. Bounderby's house. +The shadows of night had gathered so fast, that he did not look +about him when he closed the door, but plodded straight along the +street. Nothing was further from his thoughts than the curious old +woman he had encountered on his previous visit to the same house, +when he heard a step behind him that he knew, and turning, saw her +in Rachael's company. + +He saw Rachael first, as he had heard her only. + +'Ah, Rachael, my dear! Missus, thou wi' her!' + +'Well, and now you are surprised to be sure, and with reason I must +say,' the old woman returned. 'Here I am again, you see.' + +'But how wi' Rachael?' said Stephen, falling into their step, +walking between them, and looking from the one to the other. + +'Why, I come to be with this good lass pretty much as I came to be +with you,' said the old woman, cheerfully, taking the reply upon +herself. 'My visiting time is later this year than usual, for I +have been rather troubled with shortness of breath, and so put it +off till the weather was fine and warm. For the same reason I +don't make all my journey in one day, but divide it into two days, +and get a bed to-night at the Travellers' Coffee House down by the +railroad (a nice clean house), and go back Parliamentary, at six in +the morning. Well, but what has this to do with this good lass, +says you? I'm going to tell you. I have heard of Mr. Bounderby +being married. I read it in the paper, where it looked grand - oh, +it looked fine!' the old woman dwelt on it with strange enthusiasm: +'and I want to see his wife. I have never seen her yet. Now, if +you'll believe me, she hasn't come out of that house since noon to- +day. So not to give her up too easily, I was waiting about, a +little last bit more, when I passed close to this good lass two or +three times; and her face being so friendly I spoke to her, and she +spoke to me. There!' said the old woman to Stephen, 'you can make +all the rest out for yourself now, a deal shorter than I can, I +dare say!' + +Once again, Stephen had to conquer an instinctive propensity to +dislike this old woman, though her manner was as honest and simple +as a manner possibly could be. With a gentleness that was as +natural to him as he knew it to be to Rachael, he pursued the +subject that interested her in her old age. + +'Well, missus,' said he, 'I ha seen the lady, and she were young +and hansom. Wi' fine dark thinkin eyes, and a still way, Rachael, +as I ha never seen the like on.' + +'Young and handsome. Yes!' cried the old woman, quite delighted. +'As bonny as a rose! And what a happy wife!' + +'Aye, missus, I suppose she be,' said Stephen. But with a doubtful +glance at Rachael. + +'Suppose she be? She must be. She's your master's wife,' returned +the old woman. + +Stephen nodded assent. 'Though as to master,' said he, glancing +again at Rachael, 'not master onny more. That's aw enden 'twixt +him and me.' + +'Have you left his work, Stephen?' asked Rachael, anxiously and +quickly. + +'Why, Rachael,' he replied, 'whether I ha lef'n his work, or +whether his work ha lef'n me, cooms t' th' same. His work and me +are parted. 'Tis as weel so - better, I were thinkin when yo coom +up wi' me. It would ha brought'n trouble upon trouble if I had +stayed theer. Haply 'tis a kindness to monny that I go; haply 'tis +a kindness to myseln; anyways it mun be done. I mun turn my face +fro Coketown fur th' time, and seek a fort'n, dear, by beginnin +fresh.' + +'Where will you go, Stephen?' + +'I donno t'night,' said he, lifting off his hat, and smoothing his +thin hair with the flat of his hand. 'But I'm not goin t'night, +Rachael, nor yet t'morrow. 'Tan't easy overmuch t' know wheer t' +turn, but a good heart will coom to me.' + +Herein, too, the sense of even thinking unselfishly aided him. +Before he had so much as closed Mr. Bounderby's door, he had +reflected that at least his being obliged to go away was good for +her, as it would save her from the chance of being brought into +question for not withdrawing from him. Though it would cost him a +hard pang to leave her, and though he could think of no similar +place in which his condemnation would not pursue him, perhaps it +was almost a relief to be forced away from the endurance of the +last four days, even to unknown difficulties and distresses. + +So he said, with truth, 'I'm more leetsome, Rachael, under 't, than +I could'n ha believed.' It was not her part to make his burden +heavier. She answered with her comforting smile, and the three +walked on together. + +Age, especially when it strives to be self-reliant and cheerful, +finds much consideration among the poor. The old woman was so +decent and contented, and made so light of her infirmities, though +they had increased upon her since her former interview with +Stephen, that they both took an interest in her. She was too +sprightly to allow of their walking at a slow pace on her account, +but she was very grateful to be talked to, and very willing to talk +to any extent: so, when they came to their part of the town, she +was more brisk and vivacious than ever. + +'Come to my poor place, missus,' said Stephen, 'and tak a coop o' +tea. Rachael will coom then; and arterwards I'll see thee safe t' +thy Travellers' lodgin. 'T may be long, Rachael, ere ever I ha th' +chance o' thy coompany agen.' + +They complied, and the three went on to the house where he lodged. +When they turned into a narrow street, Stephen glanced at his +window with a dread that always haunted his desolate home; but it +was open, as he had left it, and no one was there. The evil spirit +of his life had flitted away again, months ago, and he had heard no +more of her since. The only evidence of her last return now, were +the scantier moveables in his room, and the grayer hair upon his +head. + +He lighted a candle, set out his little tea-board, got hot water +from below, and brought in small portions of tea and sugar, a loaf, +and some butter from the nearest shop. The bread was new and +crusty, the butter fresh, and the sugar lump, of course - in +fulfilment of the standard testimony of the Coketown magnates, that +these people lived like princes, sir. Rachael made the tea (so +large a party necessitated the borrowing of a cup), and the visitor +enjoyed it mightily. It was the first glimpse of sociality the +host had had for many days. He too, with the world a wide heath +before him, enjoyed the meal - again in corroboration of the +magnates, as exemplifying the utter want of calculation on the part +of these people, sir. + +'I ha never thowt yet, missus,' said Stephen, 'o' askin thy name.' + +The old lady announced herself as 'Mrs. Pegler.' + +'A widder, I think?' said Stephen. + +'Oh, many long years!' Mrs. Pegler's husband (one of the best on +record) was already dead, by Mrs. Pegler's calculation, when +Stephen was born. + +''Twere a bad job, too, to lose so good a one,' said Stephen. +'Onny children?' + +Mrs. Pegler's cup, rattling against her saucer as she held it, +denoted some nervousness on her part. 'No,' she said. 'Not now, +not now.' + +'Dead, Stephen,' Rachael softly hinted. + +'I'm sooary I ha spok'n on 't,' said Stephen, 'I ought t' hadn in +my mind as I might touch a sore place. I - I blame myseln.' + +While he excused himself, the old lady's cup rattled more and more. +'I had a son,' she said, curiously distressed, and not by any of +the usual appearances of sorrow; 'and he did well, wonderfully +well. But he is not to be spoken of if you please. He is - ' +Putting down her cup, she moved her hands as if she would have +added, by her action, 'dead!' Then she said aloud, 'I have lost +him.' + +Stephen had not yet got the better of his having given the old lady +pain, when his landlady came stumbling up the narrow stairs, and +calling him to the door, whispered in his ear. Mrs. Pegler was by +no means deaf, for she caught a word as it was uttered. + +'Bounderby!' she cried, in a suppressed voice, starting up from the +table. 'Oh hide me! Don't let me be seen for the world. Don't +let him come up till I've got away. Pray, pray!' She trembled, +and was excessively agitated; getting behind Rachael, when Rachael +tried to reassure her; and not seeming to know what she was about. + +'But hearken, missus, hearken,' said Stephen, astonished. "Tisn't +Mr. Bounderby; 'tis his wife. Yo'r not fearfo' o' her. Yo was +hey-go-mad about her, but an hour sin.' + +'But are you sure it's the lady, and not the gentleman?' she asked, +still trembling. + +'Certain sure!' + +'Well then, pray don't speak to me, nor yet take any notice of me,' +said the old woman. 'Let me be quite to myself in this corner.' + +Stephen nodded; looking to Rachael for an explanation, which she +was quite unable to give him; took the candle, went downstairs, and +in a few moments returned, lighting Louisa into the room. She was +followed by the whelp. + +Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and bonnet in her +hand, when Stephen, himself profoundly astonished by this visit, +put the candle on the table. Then he too stood, with his doubled +hand upon the table near it, waiting to be addressed. + +For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the +dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life she +was face to face with anything like individuality in connection +with them. She knew of their existence by hundreds and by +thousands. She knew what results in work a given number of them +would produce in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds +passing to and from their nests, like ants or beetles. But she +knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling +insects than of these toiling men and women. + +Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; +something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; +something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into +difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was +dear, and over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that +increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another +percentage of crime, and such another percentage of pauperism; +something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made; something +that occasionally rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste +(chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew the Coketown +Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of separating them +into units, than of separating the sea itself into its component +drops. + +She stood for some moments looking round the room. From the few +chairs, the few books, the common prints, and the bed, she glanced +to the two women, and to Stephen. + +'I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what passed just +now. I should like to be serviceable to you, if you will let me. +Is this your wife?' + +Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently answered no, and +dropped again. + +'I remember,' said Louisa, reddening at her mistake; 'I recollect, +now, to have heard your domestic misfortunes spoken of, though I +was not attending to the particulars at the time. It was not my +meaning to ask a question that would give pain to any one here. If +I should ask any other question that may happen to have that +result, give me credit, if you please, for being in ignorance how +to speak to you as I ought.' + +As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed +himself to her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to +Rachael. Her manner was short and abrupt, yet faltering and timid. + +'He has told you what has passed between himself and my husband? +You would be his first resource, I think.' + +'I have heard the end of it, young lady,' said Rachael. + +'Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, he would +probably be rejected by all? I thought he said as much?' + +'The chances are very small, young lady - next to nothing - for a +man who gets a bad name among them.' + +'What shall I understand that you mean by a bad name?' + +'The name of being troublesome.' + +'Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the prejudices of +the other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the two so deeply separated +in this town, that there is no place whatever for an honest workman +between them?' + +Rachael shook her head in silence. + +'He fell into suspicion,' said Louisa, 'with his fellow-weavers, +because - he had made a promise not to be one of them. I think it +must have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you +why he made it?' + +Rachael burst into tears. 'I didn't seek it of him, poor lad. I +prayed him to avoid trouble for his own good, little thinking he'd +come to it through me. But I know he'd die a hundred deaths, ere +ever he'd break his word. I know that of him well.' + +Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful +attitude, with his hand at his chin. He now spoke in a voice +rather less steady than usual. + +'No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an' what +love, an' respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi' what cause. When I +passed that promess, I towd her true, she were th' Angel o' my +life. 'Twere a solemn promess. 'Tis gone fro' me, for ever.' + +Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that +was new in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and her features +softened. 'What will you do?' she asked him. And her voice had +softened too. + +'Weel, ma'am,' said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile; +'when I ha finished off, I mun quit this part, and try another. +Fortnet or misfortnet, a man can but try; there's nowt to be done +wi'out tryin' - cept laying down and dying.' + +'How will you travel?' + +'Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.' + +Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of +a bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the +table. + +'Rachael, will you tell him - for you know how, without offence - +that this is freely his, to help him on his way? Will you entreat +him to take it?' + +'I canna do that, young lady,' she answered, turning her head +aside. 'Bless you for thinking o' the poor lad wi' such +tenderness. But 'tis for him to know his heart, and what is right +according to it.' + +Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part +overcome with quick sympathy, when this man of so much self- +command, who had been so plain and steady through the late +interview, lost his composure in a moment, and now stood with his +hand before his face. She stretched out hers, as if she would have +touched him; then checked herself, and remained still. + +'Not e'en Rachael,' said Stephen, when he stood again with his face +uncovered, 'could mak sitch a kind offerin, by onny words, kinder. +T' show that I'm not a man wi'out reason and gratitude, I'll tak +two pound. I'll borrow 't for t' pay 't back. 'Twill be the +sweetest work as ever I ha done, that puts it in my power t' +acknowledge once more my lastin thankfulness for this present +action.' + +She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much +smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor handsome, +nor picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting +it, and of expressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in +it that Lord Chesterfield could not have taught his son in a +century. + +Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and sucking his walking- +stick with sufficient unconcern, until the visit had attained this +stage. Seeing his sister ready to depart, he got up, rather +hurriedly, and put in a word. + +'Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should like to speak to +him a moment. Something comes into my head. If you'll step out on +the stairs, Blackpool, I'll mention it. Never mind a light, man!' +Tom was remarkably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard, to +get one. 'It don't want a light.' + +Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and held +the lock in his hand. + +'I say!' he whispered. 'I think I can do you a good turn. Don't +ask me what it is, because it may not come to anything. But +there's no harm in my trying.' + +His breath fell like a flame of fire on Stephen's ear, it was so +hot. + +'That was our light porter at the Bank,' said Tom, 'who brought you +the message to-night. I call him our light porter, because I +belong to the Bank too.' + +Stephen thought, 'What a hurry he is in!' He spoke so confusedly. + +'Well!' said Tom. 'Now look here! When are you off?' + +'T' day's Monday,' replied Stephen, considering. 'Why, sir, Friday +or Saturday, nigh 'bout.' + +'Friday or Saturday,' said Tom. 'Now look here! I am not sure +that I can do you the good turn I want to do you - that's my +sister, you know, in your room - but I may be able to, and if I +should not be able to, there's no harm done. So I tell you what. +You'll know our light porter again?' + +'Yes, sure,' said Stephen. + +'Very well,' returned Tom. 'When you leave work of a night, +between this and your going away, just hang about the Bank an hour +or so, will you? Don't take on, as if you meant anything, if he +should see you hanging about there; because I shan't put him up to +speak to you, unless I find I can do you the service I want to do +you. In that case he'll have a note or a message for you, but not +else. Now look here! You are sure you understand.' + +He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a button-hole of +Stephen's coat, and was screwing that corner of the garment tight +up round and round, in an extraordinary manner. + +'I understand, sir,' said Stephen. + +'Now look here!' repeated Tom. 'Be sure you don't make any mistake +then, and don't forget. I shall tell my sister as we go home, what +I have in view, and she'll approve, I know. Now look here! You're +all right, are you? You understand all about it? Very well then. +Come along, Loo!' + +He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did not return +into the room, or wait to be lighted down the narrow stairs. He +was at the bottom when she began to descend, and was in the street +before she could take his arm. + +Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother and sister +were gone, and until Stephen came back with the candle in his hand. +She was in a state of inexpressible admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, +and, like an unaccountable old woman, wept, 'because she was such a +pretty dear.' Yet Mrs. Pegler was so flurried lest the object of +her admiration should return by chance, or anybody else should +come, that her cheerfulness was ended for that night. It was late +too, to people who rose early and worked hard; therefore the party +broke up; and Stephen and Rachael escorted their mysterious +acquaintance to the door of the Travellers' Coffee House, where +they parted from her. + +They walked back together to the corner of the street where Rachael +lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer to it, silence crept upon +them. When they came to the dark corner where their unfrequent +meetings always ended, they stopped, still silent, as if both were +afraid to speak. + +'I shall strive t' see thee agen, Rachael, afore I go, but if not - +' + +'Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. 'Tis better that we make up our +minds to be open wi' one another.' + +'Thou'rt awlus right. 'Tis bolder and better. I ha been thinkin +then, Rachael, that as 'tis but a day or two that remains, 'twere +better for thee, my dear, not t' be seen wi' me. 'T might bring +thee into trouble, fur no good.' + +''Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. But thou know'st our old +agreement. 'Tis for that.' + +'Well, well,' said he. "Tis better, onnyways.' + +'Thou'lt write to me, and tell me all that happens, Stephen?' + +'Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi' thee, Heaven bless +thee, Heaven thank thee and reward thee!' + +'May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wanderings, and send +thee peace and rest at last!' + +'I towd thee, my dear,' said Stephen Blackpool - 'that night - that +I would never see or think o' onnything that angered me, but thou, +so much better than me, should'st be beside it. Thou'rt beside it +now. Thou mak'st me see it wi' a better eye. Bless thee. Good +night. Good-bye!' + +It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet it was a +sacred remembrance to these two common people. Utilitarian +economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, +genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog's-eared +creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in them, +while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and +affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, +in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of +their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, +Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you. + +Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered by a word from +any one, and shunned in all his comings and goings as before. At +the end of the second day, he saw land; at the end of the third, +his loom stood empty. + +He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the Bank, on each +of the two first evenings; and nothing had happened there, good or +bad. That he might not be remiss in his part of the engagement, he +resolved to wait full two hours, on this third and last night. + +There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Bounderby's house, sitting +at the first-floor window as he had seen her before; and there was +the light porter, sometimes talking with her there, and sometimes +looking over the blind below which had BANK upon it, and sometimes +coming to the door and standing on the steps for a breath of air. +When he first came out, Stephen thought he might be looking for +him, and passed near; but the light porter only cast his winking +eyes upon him slightly, and said nothing. + +Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after a long day's +labour. Stephen sat upon the step of a door, leaned against a wall +under an archway, strolled up and down, listened for the church +clock, stopped and watched children playing in the street. Some +purpose or other is so natural to every one, that a mere loiterer +always looks and feels remarkable. When the first hour was out, +Stephen even began to have an uncomfortable sensation upon him of +being for the time a disreputable character. + +Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines of light all +down the long perspective of the street, until they were blended +and lost in the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed the first-floor +window, drew down the blind, and went up-stairs. Presently, a +light went up-stairs after her, passing first the fanlight of the +door, and afterwards the two staircase windows, on its way up. By +and by, one corner of the second-floor blind was disturbed, as if +Mrs. Sparsit's eye were there; also the other corner, as if the +light porter's eye were on that side. Still, no communication was +made to Stephen. Much relieved when the two hours were at last +accomplished, he went away at a quick pace, as a recompense for so +much loitering. + +He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie down on his +temporary bed upon the floor; for his bundle was made up for to- +morrow, and all was arranged for his departure. He meant to be +clear of the town very early; before the Hands were in the streets. + +It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look round his room, +mournfully wondering whether he should ever see it again, he went +out. The town was as entirely deserted as if the inhabitants had +abandoned it, rather than hold communication with him. Everything +looked wan at that hour. Even the coming sun made but a pale waste +in the sky, like a sad sea. + +By the place where Rachael lived, though it was not in his way; by +the red brick streets; by the great silent factories, not trembling +yet; by the railway, where the danger-lights were waning in the +strengthening day; by the railway's crazy neighbourhood, half +pulled down and half built up; by scattered red brick villas, where +the besmoked evergreens were sprinkled with a dirty powder, like +untidy snuff-takers; by coal-dust paths and many varieties of +ugliness; Stephen got to the top of the hill, and looked back. + +Day was shining radiantly upon the town then, and the bells were +going for the morning work. Domestic fires were not yet lighted, +and the high chimneys had the sky to themselves. Puffing out their +poisonous volumes, they would not be long in hiding it; but, for +half an hour, some of the many windows were golden, which showed +the Coketown people a sun eternally in eclipse, through a medium of +smoked glass. + +So strange to turn from the chimneys to the birds. So strange, to +have the road-dust on his feet instead of the coal-grit. So +strange to have lived to his time of life, and yet to be beginning +like a boy this summer morning! With these musings in his mind, +and his bundle under his arm, Stephen took his attentive face along +the high road. And the trees arched over him, whispering that he +left a true and loving heart behind. + + + +CHAPTER VII - GUNPOWDER + + + +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE, 'going in' for his adopted party, soon began +to score. With the aid of a little more coaching for the political +sages, a little more genteel listlessness for the general society, +and a tolerable management of the assumed honesty in dishonesty, +most effective and most patronized of the polite deadly sins, he +speedily came to be considered of much promise. The not being +troubled with earnestness was a grand point in his favour, enabling +him to take to the hard Fact fellows with as good a grace as if he +had been born one of the tribe, and to throw all other tribes +overboard, as conscious hypocrites. + +'Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. Bounderby, and who do not +believe themselves. The only difference between us and the +professors of virtue or benevolence, or philanthropy - never mind +the name - is, that we know it is all meaningless, and say so; +while they know it equally and will never say so.' + +Why should she be shocked or warned by this reiteration? It was +not so unlike her father's principles, and her early training, that +it need startle her. Where was the great difference between the +two schools, when each chained her down to material realities, and +inspired her with no faith in anything else? What was there in her +soul for James Harthouse to destroy, which Thomas Gradgrind had +nurtured there in its state of innocence! + +It was even the worse for her at this pass, that in her mind - +implanted there before her eminently practical father began to form +it - a struggling disposition to believe in a wider and nobler +humanity than she had ever heard of, constantly strove with doubts +and resentments. With doubts, because the aspiration had been so +laid waste in her youth. With resentments, because of the wrong +that had been done her, if it were indeed a whisper of the truth. +Upon a nature long accustomed to self-suppression, thus torn and +divided, the Harthouse philosophy came as a relief and +justification. Everything being hollow and worthless, she had +missed nothing and sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had +said to her father, when he proposed her husband. What did it +matter, she said still. With a scornful self-reliance, she asked +herself, What did anything matter - and went on. + +Towards what? Step by step, onward and downward, towards some end, +yet so gradually, that she believed herself to remain motionless. +As to Mr. Harthouse, whither he tended, he neither considered nor +cared. He had no particular design or plan before him: no +energetic wickedness ruffled his lassitude. He was as much amused +and interested, at present, as it became so fine a gentleman to be; +perhaps even more than it would have been consistent with his +reputation to confess. Soon after his arrival he languidly wrote +to his brother, the honourable and jocular member, that the +Bounderbys were 'great fun;' and further, that the female +Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he had expected, was young, +and remarkably pretty. After that, he wrote no more about them, +and devoted his leisure chiefly to their house. He was very often +in their house, in his flittings and visitings about the Coketown +district; and was much encouraged by Mr. Bounderby. It was quite +in Mr. Bounderby's gusty way to boast to all his world that he +didn't care about your highly connected people, but that if his +wife Tom Gradgrind's daughter did, she was welcome to their +company. + +Mr. James Harthouse began to think it would be a new sensation, if +the face which changed so beautifully for the whelp, would change +for him. + +He was quick enough to observe; he had a good memory, and did not +forget a word of the brother's revelations. He interwove them with +everything he saw of the sister, and he began to understand her. +To be sure, the better and profounder part of her character was not +within his scope of perception; for in natures, as in seas, depth +answers unto depth; but he soon began to read the rest with a +student's eye. + +Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a house and grounds, about +fifteen miles from the town, and accessible within a mile or two, +by a railway striding on many arches over a wild country, +undermined by deserted coal-shafts, and spotted at night by fires +and black shapes of stationary engines at pits' mouths. This +country, gradually softening towards the neighbourhood of Mr. +Bounderby's retreat, there mellowed into a rustic landscape, golden +with heath, and snowy with hawthorn in the spring of the year, and +tremulous with leaves and their shadows all the summer time. The +bank had foreclosed a mortgage effected on the property thus +pleasantly situated, by one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his +determination to make a shorter cut than usual to an enormous +fortune, overspeculated himself by about two hundred thousand +pounds. These accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated +families of Coketown, but the bankrupts had no connexion whatever +with the improvident classes. + +It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satisfaction to instal himself in +this snug little estate, and with demonstrative humility to grow +cabbages in the flower-garden. He delighted to live, barrack- +fashion, among the elegant furniture, and he bullied the very +pictures with his origin. 'Why, sir,' he would say to a visitor, +'I am told that Nickits,' the late owner, 'gave seven hundred pound +for that Seabeach. Now, to be plain with you, if I ever, in the +whole course of my life, take seven looks at it, at a hundred pound +a look, it will be as much as I shall do. No, by George! I don't +forget that I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. For years upon +years, the only pictures in my possession, or that I could have got +into my possession, by any means, unless I stole 'em, were the +engravings of a man shaving himself in a boot, on the blacking +bottles that I was overjoyed to use in cleaning boots with, and +that I sold when they were empty for a farthing a-piece, and glad +to get it!' + +Then he would address Mr. Harthouse in the same style. + +'Harthouse, you have a couple of horses down here. Bring half a +dozen more if you like, and we'll find room for 'em. There's +stabling in this place for a dozen horses; and unless Nickits is +belied, he kept the full number. A round dozen of 'em, sir. When +that man was a boy, he went to Westminster School. Went to +Westminster School as a King's Scholar, when I was principally +living on garbage, and sleeping in market baskets. Why, if I +wanted to keep a dozen horses - which I don't, for one's enough for +me - I couldn't bear to see 'em in their stalls here, and think +what my own lodging used to be. I couldn't look at 'em, sir, and +not order 'em out. Yet so things come round. You see this place; +you know what sort of a place it is; you are aware that there's not +a completer place of its size in this kingdom or elsewhere - I +don't care where - and here, got into the middle of it, like a +maggot into a nut, is Josiah Bounderby. While Nickits (as a man +came into my office, and told me yesterday), Nickits, who used to +act in Latin, in the Westminster School plays, with the chief- +justices and nobility of this country applauding him till they were +black in the face, is drivelling at this minute - drivelling, sir! +- in a fifth floor, up a narrow dark back street in Antwerp.' + +It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in the long +sultry summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began to prove the face +which had set him wondering when he first saw it, and to try if it +would change for him. + +'Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate accident that I find +you alone here. I have for some time had a particular wish to +speak to you.' + +It was not by any wonderful accident that he found her, the time of +day being that at which she was always alone, and the place being +her favourite resort. It was an opening in a dark wood, where some +felled trees lay, and where she would sit watching the fallen +leaves of last year, as she had watched the falling ashes at home. + +He sat down beside her, with a glance at her face. + +'Your brother. My young friend Tom - ' + +Her colour brightened, and she turned to him with a look of +interest. 'I never in my life,' he thought, 'saw anything so +remarkable and so captivating as the lighting of those features!' +His face betrayed his thoughts - perhaps without betraying him, for +it might have been according to its instructions so to do. + +'Pardon me. The expression of your sisterly interest is so +beautiful - Tom should be so proud of it - I know this is +inexcusable, but I am so compelled to admire.' + +'Being so impulsive,' she said composedly. + +'Mrs. Bounderby, no: you know I make no pretence with you. You +know I am a sordid piece of human nature, ready to sell myself at +any time for any reasonable sum, and altogether incapable of any +Arcadian proceeding whatever.' + +'I am waiting,' she returned, 'for your further reference to my +brother.' + +'You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. I am as worthless a dog +as you will find, except that I am not false - not false. But you +surprised and started me from my subject, which was your brother. +I have an interest in him.' + +'Have you an interest in anything, Mr. Harthouse?' she asked, half +incredulously and half gratefully. + +'If you had asked me when I first came here, I should have said no. +I must say now - even at the hazard of appearing to make a +pretence, and of justly awakening your incredulity - yes.' + +She made a slight movement, as if she were trying to speak, but +could not find voice; at length she said, 'Mr. Harthouse, I give +you credit for being interested in my brother.' + +'Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You know how little I do +claim, but I will go that length. You have done so much for him, +you are so fond of him; your whole life, Mrs. Bounderby, expresses +such charming self-forgetfulness on his account - pardon me again - +I am running wide of the subject. I am interested in him for his +own sake.' + +She had made the slightest action possible, as if she would have +risen in a hurry and gone away. He had turned the course of what +he said at that instant, and she remained. + +'Mrs. Bounderby,' he resumed, in a lighter manner, and yet with a +show of effort in assuming it, which was even more expressive than +the manner he dismissed; 'it is no irrevocable offence in a young +fellow of your brother's years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate, +and expensive - a little dissipated, in the common phrase. Is he?' + +'Yes.' + +'Allow me to be frank. Do you think he games at all?' + +'I think he makes bets.' Mr. Harthouse waiting, as if that were +not her whole answer, she added, 'I know he does.' + +'Of course he loses?' + +'Yes.' + +'Everybody does lose who bets. May I hint at the probability of +your sometimes supplying him with money for these purposes?' + +She sat, looking down; but, at this question, raised her eyes +searchingly and a little resentfully. + +'Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my dear Mrs. Bounderby. I +think Tom may be gradually falling into trouble, and I wish to +stretch out a helping hand to him from the depths of my wicked +experience. - Shall I say again, for his sake? Is that necessary?' + +She seemed to try to answer, but nothing came of it. + +'Candidly to confess everything that has occurred to me,' said +James Harthouse, again gliding with the same appearance of effort +into his more airy manner; 'I will confide to you my doubt whether +he has had many advantages. Whether - forgive my plainness - +whether any great amount of confidence is likely to have been +established between himself and his most worthy father.' + +'I do not,' said Louisa, flushing with her own great remembrance in +that wise, 'think it likely.' + +'Or, between himself, and - I may trust to your perfect +understanding of my meaning, I am sure - and his highly esteemed +brother-in-law.' + +She flushed deeper and deeper, and was burning red when she replied +in a fainter voice, 'I do not think that likely, either.' + +'Mrs. Bounderby,' said Harthouse, after a short silence, 'may there +be a better confidence between yourself and me? Tom has borrowed a +considerable sum of you?' + +'You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,' she returned, after some +indecision: she had been more or less uncertain, and troubled +throughout the conversation, and yet had in the main preserved her +self-contained manner; 'you will understand that if I tell you what +you press to know, it is not by way of complaint or regret. I +would never complain of anything, and what I have done I do not in +the least regret.' + +'So spirited, too!' thought James Harthouse. + +'When I married, I found that my brother was even at that time +heavily in debt. Heavily for him, I mean. Heavily enough to +oblige me to sell some trinkets. They were no sacrifice. I sold +them very willingly. I attached no value to them. They, were +quite worthless to me.' + +Either she saw in his face that he knew, or she only feared in her +conscience that he knew, that she spoke of some of her husband's +gifts. She stopped, and reddened again. If he had not known it +before, he would have known it then, though he had been a much +duller man than he was. + +'Since then, I have given my brother, at various times, what money +I could spare: in short, what money I have had. Confiding in you +at all, on the faith of the interest you profess for him, I will +not do so by halves. Since you have been in the habit of visiting +here, he has wanted in one sum as much as a hundred pounds. I have +not been able to give it to him. I have felt uneasy for the +consequences of his being so involved, but I have kept these +secrets until now, when I trust them to your honour. I have held +no confidence with any one, because - you anticipated my reason +just now.' She abruptly broke off. + +He was a ready man, and he saw, and seized, an opportunity here of +presenting her own image to her, slightly disguised as her brother. + +'Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, of the world worldly, I +feel the utmost interest, I assure you, in what you tell me. I +cannot possibly be hard upon your brother. I understand and share +the wise consideration with which you regard his errors. With all +possible respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and for Mr. Bounderby, I +think I perceive that he has not been fortunate in his training. +Bred at a disadvantage towards the society in which he has his part +to play, he rushes into these extremes for himself, from opposite +extremes that have long been forced - with the very best intentions +we have no doubt - upon him. Mr. Bounderby's fine bluff English +independence, though a most charming characteristic, does not - as +we have agreed - invite confidence. If I might venture to remark +that it is the least in the world deficient in that delicacy to +which a youth mistaken, a character misconceived, and abilities +misdirected, would turn for relief and guidance, I should express +what it presents to my own view.' + +As she sat looking straight before her, across the changing lights +upon the grass into the darkness of the wood beyond, he saw in her +face her application of his very distinctly uttered words. + +'All allowance,' he continued, 'must be made. I have one great +fault to find with Tom, however, which I cannot forgive, and for +which I take him heavily to account.' + +Louisa turned her eyes to his face, and asked him what fault was +that? + +'Perhaps,' he returned, 'I have said enough. Perhaps it would have +been better, on the whole, if no allusion to it had escaped me.' + +'You alarm me, Mr. Harthouse. Pray let me know it.' + +'To relieve you from needless apprehension - and as this confidence +regarding your brother, which I prize I am sure above all possible +things, has been established between us - I obey. I cannot forgive +him for not being more sensible in every word, look, and act of his +life, of the affection of his best friend; of the devotion of his +best friend; of her unselfishness; of her sacrifice. The return he +makes her, within my observation, is a very poor one. What she has +done for him demands his constant love and gratitude, not his ill- +humour and caprice. Careless fellow as I am, I am not so +indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as to be regardless of this vice in +your brother, or inclined to consider it a venial offence.' + +The wood floated before her, for her eyes were suffused with tears. +They rose from a deep well, long concealed, and her heart was +filled with acute pain that found no relief in them. + +'In a word, it is to correct your brother in this, Mrs. Bounderby, +that I must aspire. My better knowledge of his circumstances, and +my direction and advice in extricating them - rather valuable, I +hope, as coming from a scapegrace on a much larger scale - will +give me some influence over him, and all I gain I shall certainly +use towards this end. I have said enough, and more than enough. I +seem to be protesting that I am a sort of good fellow, when, upon +my honour, I have not the least intention to make any protestation +to that effect, and openly announce that I am nothing of the sort. +Yonder, among the trees,' he added, having lifted up his eyes and +looked about; for he had watched her closely until now; 'is your +brother himself; no doubt, just come down. As he seems to be +loitering in this direction, it may be as well, perhaps, to walk +towards him, and throw ourselves in his way. He has been very +silent and doleful of late. Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is +touched - if there are such things as consciences. Though, upon my +honour, I hear of them much too often to believe in them.' + +He assisted her to rise, and she took his arm, and they advanced to +meet the whelp. He was idly beating the branches as he lounged +along: or he stooped viciously to rip the moss from the trees with +his stick. He was startled when they came upon him while he was +engaged in this latter pastime, and his colour changed. + +'Halloa!' he stammered; 'I didn't know you were here.' + +'Whose name, Tom,' said Mr. Harthouse, putting his hand upon his +shoulder and turning him, so that they all three walked towards the +house together, 'have you been carving on the trees?' + +'Whose name?' returned Tom. 'Oh! You mean what girl's name?' + +'You have a suspicious appearance of inscribing some fair +creature's on the bark, Tom.' + +'Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless some fair creature with a +slashing fortune at her own disposal would take a fancy to me. Or +she might be as ugly as she was rich, without any fear of losing +me. I'd carve her name as often as she liked.' + +'I am afraid you are mercenary, Tom.' + +'Mercenary,' repeated Tom. 'Who is not mercenary? Ask my sister.' + +'Have you so proved it to be a failing of mine, Tom?' said Louisa, +showing no other sense of his discontent and ill-nature. + +'You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,' returned her brother +sulkily. 'If it does, you can wear it.' + +'Tom is misanthropical to-day, as all bored people are now and +then,' said Mr. Harthouse. 'Don't believe him, Mrs. Bounderby. He +knows much better. I shall disclose some of his opinions of you, +privately expressed to me, unless he relents a little.' + +'At all events, Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom, softening in his +admiration of his patron, but shaking his head sullenly too, 'you +can't tell her that I ever praised her for being mercenary. I may +have praised her for being the contrary, and I should do it again, +if I had as good reason. However, never mind this now; it's not +very interesting to you, and I am sick of the subject.' + +They walked on to the house, where Louisa quitted her visitor's arm +and went in. He stood looking after her, as she ascended the +steps, and passed into the shadow of the door; then put his hand +upon her brother's shoulder again, and invited him with a +confidential nod to a walk in the garden. + +'Tom, my fine fellow, I want to have a word with you.' + +They had stopped among a disorder of roses - it was part of Mr. +Bounderby's humility to keep Nickits's roses on a reduced scale - +and Tom sat down on a terrace-parapet, plucking buds and picking +them to pieces; while his powerful Familiar stood over him, with a +foot upon the parapet, and his figure easily resting on the arm +supported by that knee. They were just visible from her window. +Perhaps she saw them. + +'Tom, what's the matter?' + +'Oh! Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom with a groan, 'I am hard up, and +bothered out of my life.' + +'My good fellow, so am I.' + +'You!' returned Tom. 'You are the picture of independence. Mr. +Harthouse, I am in a horrible mess. You have no idea what a state +I have got myself into - what a state my sister might have got me +out of, if she would only have done it.' + +He took to biting the rosebuds now, and tearing them away from his +teeth with a hand that trembled like an infirm old man's. After +one exceedingly observant look at him, his companion relapsed into +his lightest air. + +'Tom, you are inconsiderate: you expect too much of your sister. +You have had money of her, you dog, you know you have.' + +'Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else was I to get it? +Here's old Bounderby always boasting that at my age he lived upon +twopence a month, or something of that sort. Here's my father +drawing what he calls a line, and tying me down to it from a baby, +neck and heels. Here's my mother who never has anything of her +own, except her complaints. What is a fellow to do for money, and +where am I to look for it, if not to my sister?' + +He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by dozens. Mr. +Harthouse took him persuasively by the coat. + +'But, my dear Tom, if your sister has not got it - ' + +'Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don't say she has got it. I may +have wanted more than she was likely to have got. But then she +ought to get it. She could get it. It's of no use pretending to +make a secret of matters now, after what I have told you already; +you know she didn't marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for +his sake, but for my sake. Then why doesn't she get what I want, +out of him, for my sake? She is not obliged to say what she is +going to do with it; she is sharp enough; she could manage to coax +it out of him, if she chose. Then why doesn't she choose, when I +tell her of what consequence it is? But no. There she sits in his +company like a stone, instead of making herself agreeable and +getting it easily. I don't know what you may call this, but I call +it unnatural conduct.' + +There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the +parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a +very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind junior, as +the injured men of Coketown threatened to pitch their property into +the Atlantic. But he preserved his easy attitude; and nothing more +solid went over the stone balustrades than the accumulated rosebuds +now floating about, a little surface-island. + +'My dear Tom,' said Harthouse, 'let me try to be your banker.' + +'For God's sake,' replied Tom, suddenly, 'don't talk about +bankers!' And very white he looked, in contrast with the roses. +Very white. + +Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well-bred man, accustomed to the +best society, was not to be surprised - he could as soon have been +affected - but he raised his eyelids a little more, as if they were +lifted by a feeble touch of wonder. Albeit it was as much against +the precepts of his school to wonder, as it was against the +doctrines of the Gradgrind College. + +'What is the present need, Tom? Three figures? Out with them. +Say what they are.' + +'Mr. Harthouse,' returned Tom, now actually crying; and his tears +were better than his injuries, however pitiful a figure he made: +'it's too late; the money is of no use to me at present. I should +have had it before to be of use to me. But I am very much obliged +to you; you're a true friend.' + +A true friend! 'Whelp, whelp!' thought Mr. Harthouse, lazily; +'what an Ass you are!' + +'And I take your offer as a great kindness,' said Tom, grasping his +hand. 'As a great kindness, Mr. Harthouse.' + +'Well,' returned the other, 'it may be of more use by and by. And, +my good fellow, if you will open your bedevilments to me when they +come thick upon you, I may show you better ways out of them than +you can find for yourself.' + +'Thank you,' said Tom, shaking his head dismally, and chewing +rosebuds. 'I wish I had known you sooner, Mr. Harthouse.' + +'Now, you see, Tom,' said Mr. Harthouse in conclusion, himself +tossing over a rose or two, as a contribution to the island, which +was always drifting to the wall as if it wanted to become a part of +the mainland: 'every man is selfish in everything he does, and I +am exactly like the rest of my fellow-creatures. I am desperately +intent;' the languor of his desperation being quite tropical; 'on +your softening towards your sister - which you ought to do; and on +your being a more loving and agreeable sort of brother - which you +ought to be.' + +'I will be, Mr. Harthouse.' + +'No time like the present, Tom. Begin at once.' + +'Certainly I will. And my sister Loo shall say so.' + +'Having made which bargain, Tom,' said Harthouse, clapping him on +the shoulder again, with an air which left him at liberty to infer +- as he did, poor fool - that this condition was imposed upon him +in mere careless good nature to lessen his sense of obligation, 'we +will tear ourselves asunder until dinner-time.' + +When Tom appeared before dinner, though his mind seemed heavy +enough, his body was on the alert; and he appeared before Mr. +Bounderby came in. 'I didn't mean to be cross, Loo,' he said, +giving her his hand, and kissing her. 'I know you are fond of me, +and you know I am fond of you.' + +After this, there was a smile upon Louisa's face that day, for some +one else. Alas, for some one else! + +'So much the less is the whelp the only creature that she cares +for,' thought James Harthouse, reversing the reflection of his +first day's knowledge of her pretty face. 'So much the less, so +much the less.' + + + +CHAPTER VIII - EXPLOSION + + + +THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James +Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his +dressing-room, smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome +an influence on his young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with +the fragrance of his eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke +vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with summer odours, he +reckoned up his advantages as an idle winner might count his gains. +He was not at all bored for the time, and could give his mind to +it. + +He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband +was excluded. He had established a confidence with her, that +absolutely turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and +the absence, now and at all times, of any congeniality between +them. He had artfully, but plainly, assured her that he knew her +heart in its last most delicate recesses; he had come so near to +her through its tenderest sentiment; he had associated himself with +that feeling; and the barrier behind which she lived, had melted +away. All very odd, and very satisfactory! + +And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in +him. Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in +which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were +designedly bad, than indifferent and purposeless. It is the +drifting icebergs setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the +ships. + +When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a +shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, +when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode; +when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to +brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the +serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the +very Devil. + +So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and +reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he +happened to be travelling. The end to which it led was before him, +pretty plainly; but he troubled himself with no calculations about +it. What will be, will be. + +As he had rather a long ride to take that day - for there was a +public occasion 'to do' at some distance, which afforded a +tolerable opportunity of going in for the Gradgrind men - he +dressed early and went down to breakfast. He was anxious to see if +she had relapsed since the previous evening. No. He resumed where +he had left off. There was a look of interest for him again. + +He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own +satisfaction, as was to be expected under the fatiguing +circumstances; and came riding back at six o'clock. There was a +sweep of some half-mile between the lodge and the house, and he was +riding along at a foot pace over the smooth gravel, once Nickits's, +when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the shrubbery, with such violence +as to make his horse shy across the road. + +'Harthouse!' cried Mr. Bounderby. 'Have you heard?' + +'Heard what?' said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly +favouring Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes. + +'Then you haven't heard!' + +'I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have heard nothing +else.' + +Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the +path before the horse's head, to explode his bombshell with more +effect. + +'The Bank's robbed!' + +'You don't mean it!' + +'Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary manner. +Robbed with a false key.' + +'Of much?' + +Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really seemed +mortified by being obliged to reply, 'Why, no; not of very much. +But it might have been.' + +'Of how much?' + +'Oh! as a sum - if you stick to a sum - of not more than a hundred +and fifty pound,' said Bounderby, with impatience. 'But it's not +the sum; it's the fact. It's the fact of the Bank being robbed, +that's the important circumstance. I am surprised you don't see +it.' + +'My dear Bounderby,' said James, dismounting, and giving his bridle +to his servant, 'I do see it; and am as overcome as you can +possibly desire me to be, by the spectacle afforded to my mental +view. Nevertheless, I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you +- which I do with all my soul, I assure you - on your not having +sustained a greater loss.' + +'Thank'ee,' replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious manner. 'But +I tell you what. It might have been twenty thousand pound.' + +'I suppose it might.' + +'Suppose it might! By the Lord, you may suppose so. By George!' +said Mr. Bounderby, with sundry menacing nods and shakes of his +head. 'It might have been twice twenty. There's no knowing what +it would have been, or wouldn't have been, as it was, but for the +fellows' being disturbed.' + +Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer. + +'Here's Tom Gradgrind's daughter knows pretty well what it might +have been, if you don't,' blustered Bounderby. 'Dropped, sir, as +if she was shot when I told her! Never knew her do such a thing +before. Does her credit, under the circumstances, in my opinion!' + +She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse begged her to +take his arm; and as they moved on very slowly, asked her how the +robbery had been committed. + +'Why, I am going to tell you,' said Bounderby, irritably giving his +arm to Mrs. Sparsit. 'If you hadn't been so mighty particular +about the sum, I should have begun to tell you before. You know +this lady (for she is a lady), Mrs. Sparsit?' + +'I have already had the honour - ' + +'Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw him too on the +same occasion?' Mr. Harthouse inclined his head in assent, and +Bitzer knuckled his forehead. + +'Very well. They live at the Bank. You know they live at the +Bank, perhaps? Very well. Yesterday afternoon, at the close of +business hours, everything was put away as usual. In the iron room +that this young fellow sleeps outside of, there was never mind how +much. In the little safe in young Tom's closet, the safe used for +petty purposes, there was a hundred and fifty odd pound.' + +'A hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,' said Bitzer. + +'Come!' retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel round upon him, +'let's have none of your interruptions. It's enough to be robbed +while you're snoring because you're too comfortable, without being +put right with your four seven ones. I didn't snore, myself, when +I was your age, let me tell you. I hadn't victuals enough to +snore. And I didn't four seven one. Not if I knew it.' + +Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and +seemed at once particularly impressed and depressed by the instance +last given of Mr. Bounderby's moral abstinence. + +'A hundred and fifty odd pound,' resumed Mr. Bounderby. 'That sum +of money, young Tom locked in his safe, not a very strong safe, but +that's no matter now. Everything was left, all right. Some time +in the night, while this young fellow snored - Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, +you say you have heard him snore?' + +'Sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I cannot say that I have heard him +precisely snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But +on winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have +heard him, what I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I +have heard him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar +to what may be sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,' said Mrs. +Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict evidence, 'that I +would convey any imputation on his moral character. Far from it. +I have always considered Bitzer a young man of the most upright +principle; and to that I beg to bear my testimony.' + +'Well!' said the exasperated Bounderby, 'while he was snoring, or +choking, or Dutch-clocking, or something or other - being asleep - +some fellows, somehow, whether previously concealed in the house or +not remains to be seen, got to young Tom's safe, forced it, and +abstracted the contents. Being then disturbed, they made off; +letting themselves out at the main door, and double-locking it +again (it was double-locked, and the key under Mrs. Sparsit's +pillow) with a false key, which was picked up in the street near +the Bank, about twelve o'clock to-day. No alarm takes place, till +this chap, Bitzer, turns out this morning, and begins to open and +prepare the offices for business. Then, looking at Tom's safe, he +sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced, and the money gone.' + +'Where is Tom, by the by?' asked Harthouse, glancing round. + +'He has been helping the police,' said Bounderby, 'and stays behind +at the Bank. I wish these fellows had tried to rob me when I was +at his time of life. They would have been out of pocket if they +had invested eighteenpence in the job; I can tell 'em that.' + +'Is anybody suspected?' + +'Suspected? I should think there was somebody suspected. Egod!' +said Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs. Sparsit's arm to wipe his heated +head. 'Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is not to be plundered and +nobody suspected. No, thank you!' + +Might Mr. Harthouse inquire Who was suspected? + +'Well,' said Bounderby, stopping and facing about to confront them +all, 'I'll tell you. It's not to be mentioned everywhere; it's not +to be mentioned anywhere: in order that the scoundrels concerned +(there's a gang of 'em) may be thrown off their guard. So take +this in confidence. Now wait a bit.' Mr. Bounderby wiped his head +again. 'What should you say to;' here he violently exploded: 'to +a Hand being in it?' + +'I hope,' said Harthouse, lazily, 'not our friend Blackpot?' + +'Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,' returned Bounderby, 'and that's the +man.' + +Louisa faintly uttered some word of incredulity and surprise. + +'O yes! I know!' said Bounderby, immediately catching at the +sound. 'I know! I am used to that. I know all about it. They +are the finest people in the world, these fellows are. They have +got the gift of the gab, they have. They only want to have their +rights explained to them, they do. But I tell you what. Show me a +dissatisfied Hand, and I'll show you a man that's fit for anything +bad, I don't care what it is.' + +Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which some pains had +been taken to disseminate - and which some people really believed. + +'But I am acquainted with these chaps,' said Bounderby. 'I can +read 'em off, like books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, I appeal to you. +What warning did I give that fellow, the first time he set foot in +the house, when the express object of his visit was to know how he +could knock Religion over, and floor the Established Church? Mrs. +Sparsit, in point of high connexions, you are on a level with the +aristocracy, - did I say, or did I not say, to that fellow, "you +can't hide the truth from me: you are not the kind of fellow I +like; you'll come to no good"?' + +'Assuredly, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'you did, in a highly +impressive manner, give him such an admonition.' + +'When he shocked you, ma'am,' said Bounderby; 'when he shocked your +feelings?' + +'Yes, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek shake of her head, +'he certainly did so. Though I do not mean to say but that my +feelings may be weaker on such points - more foolish if the term is +preferred - than they might have been, if I had always occupied my +present position.' + +Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. Harthouse, as +much as to say, 'I am the proprietor of this female, and she's +worth your attention, I think.' Then, resumed his discourse. + +'You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said to him when +you saw him. I didn't mince the matter with him. I am never mealy +with 'em. I KNOW 'em. Very well, sir. Three days after that, he +bolted. Went off, nobody knows where: as my mother did in my +infancy - only with this difference, that he is a worse subject +than my mother, if possible. What did he do before he went? What +do you say;' Mr. Bounderby, with his hat in his hand, gave a beat +upon the crown at every little division of his sentences, as if it +were a tambourine; 'to his being seen - night after night - +watching the Bank? - to his lurking about there - after dark? - To +its striking Mrs. Sparsit - that he could be lurking for no good - +To her calling Bitzer's attention to him, and their both taking +notice of him - And to its appearing on inquiry to-day - that he +was also noticed by the neighbours?' Having come to the climax, +Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put his tambourine on his +head. + +'Suspicious,' said James Harthouse, 'certainly.' + +'I think so, sir,' said Bounderby, with a defiant nod. 'I think +so. But there are more of 'em in it. There's an old woman. One +never hears of these things till the mischief's done; all sorts of +defects are found out in the stable door after the horse is stolen; +there's an old woman turns up now. An old woman who seems to have +been flying into town on a broomstick, every now and then. She +watches the place a whole day before this fellow begins, and on the +night when you saw him, she steals away with him and holds a +council with him - I suppose, to make her report on going off duty, +and be damned to her.' + +There was such a person in the room that night, and she shrunk from +observation, thought Louisa. + +'This is not all of 'em, even as we already know 'em,' said +Bounderby, with many nods of hidden meaning. 'But I have said +enough for the present. You'll have the goodness to keep it quiet, +and mention it to no one. It may take time, but we shall have 'em. +It's policy to give 'em line enough, and there's no objection to +that.' + +'Of course, they will be punished with the utmost rigour of the +law, as notice-boards observe,' replied James Harthouse, 'and serve +them right. Fellows who go in for Banks must take the +consequences. If there were no consequences, we should all go in +for Banks.' He had gently taken Louisa's parasol from her hand, +and had put it up for her; and she walked under its shade, though +the sun did not shine there. + +'For the present, Loo Bounderby,' said her husband, 'here's Mrs. +Sparsit to look after. Mrs. Sparsit's nerves have been acted upon +by this business, and she'll stay here a day or two. So make her +comfortable.' + +'Thank you very much, sir,' that discreet lady observed, 'but pray +do not let My comfort be a consideration. Anything will do for +Me.' + +It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in her +association with that domestic establishment, it was that she was +so excessively regardless of herself and regardful of others, as to +be a nuisance. On being shown her chamber, she was so dreadfully +sensible of its comforts as to suggest the inference that she would +have preferred to pass the night on the mangle in the laundry. +True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses were accustomed to splendour, +'but it is my duty to remember,' Mrs. Sparsit was fond of observing +with a lofty grace: particularly when any of the domestics were +present, 'that what I was, I am no longer. Indeed,' said she, 'if +I could altogether cancel the remembrance that Mr. Sparsit was a +Powler, or that I myself am related to the Scadgers family; or if I +could even revoke the fact, and make myself a person of common +descent and ordinary connexions; I would gladly do so. I should +think it, under existing circumstances, right to do so.' The same +Hermitical state of mind led to her renunciation of made dishes and +wines at dinner, until fairly commanded by Mr. Bounderby to take +them; when she said, 'Indeed you are very good, sir;' and departed +from a resolution of which she had made rather formal and public +announcement, to 'wait for the simple mutton.' She was likewise +deeply apologetic for wanting the salt; and, feeling amiably bound +to bear out Mr. Bounderby to the fullest extent in the testimony he +had borne to her nerves, occasionally sat back in her chair and +silently wept; at which periods a tear of large dimensions, like a +crystal ear-ring, might be observed (or rather, must be, for it +insisted on public notice) sliding down her Roman nose. + +But Mrs. Sparsit's greatest point, first and last, was her +determination to pity Mr. Bounderby. There were occasions when in +looking at him she was involuntarily moved to shake her head, as +who would say, 'Alas, poor Yorick!' After allowing herself to be +betrayed into these evidences of emotion, she would force a lambent +brightness, and would be fitfully cheerful, and would say, 'You +have still good spirits, sir, I am thankful to find;' and would +appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that Mr. Bounderby bore +up as he did. One idiosyncrasy for which she often apologized, she +found it excessively difficult to conquer. She had a curious +propensity to call Mrs. Bounderby 'Miss Gradgrind,' and yielded to +it some three or four score times in the course of the evening. +Her repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. Sparsit with modest +confusion; but indeed, she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss +Gradgrind: whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady whom +she had had the happiness of knowing from a child could be really +and truly Mrs. Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a +further singularity of this remarkable case, that the more she +thought about it, the more impossible it appeared; 'the +differences,' she observed, 'being such.' + +In the drawing-room after dinner, Mr. Bounderby tried the case of +the robbery, examined the witnesses, made notes of the evidence, +found the suspected persons guilty, and sentenced them to the +extreme punishment of the law. That done, Bitzer was dismissed to +town with instructions to recommend Tom to come home by the mail- +train. + +When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit murmured, 'Don't be low, +sir. Pray let me see you cheerful, sir, as I used to do.' Mr. +Bounderby, upon whom these consolations had begun to produce the +effect of making him, in a bull-headed blundering way, sentimental, +sighed like some large sea-animal. 'I cannot bear to see you so, +sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Try a hand at backgammon, sir, as you +used to do when I had the honour of living under your roof.' 'I +haven't played backgammon, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'since that +time.' 'No, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, soothingly, 'I am aware that +you have not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind takes no interest in +the game. But I shall be happy, sir, if you will condescend.' + +They played near a window, opening on the garden. It was a fine +night: not moonlight, but sultry and fragrant. Louisa and Mr. +Harthouse strolled out into the garden, where their voices could be +heard in the stillness, though not what they said. Mrs. Sparsit, +from her place at the backgammon board, was constantly straining +her eyes to pierce the shadows without. 'What's the matter, ma'am? +' said Mr. Bounderby; 'you don't see a Fire, do you?' 'Oh dear no, +sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I was thinking of the dew.' 'What +have you got to do with the dew, ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby. 'It's +not myself, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I am fearful of Miss +Gradgrind's taking cold.' 'She never takes cold,' said Mr. +Bounderby. 'Really, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit. And was affected +with a cough in her throat. + +When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby took a glass of +water. 'Oh, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Not your sherry warm, with +lemon-peel and nutmeg?' 'Why, I have got out of the habit of +taking it now, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'The more's the pity, +sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit; 'you are losing all your good old +habits. Cheer up, sir! If Miss Gradgrind will permit me, I will +offer to make it for you, as I have often done.' + +Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do anything she +pleased, that considerate lady made the beverage, and handed it to +Mr. Bounderby. 'It will do you good, sir. It will warm your +heart. It is the sort of thing you want, and ought to take, sir.' +And when Mr. Bounderby said, 'Your health, ma'am!' she answered +with great feeling, 'Thank you, sir. The same to you, and +happiness also.' Finally, she wished him good night, with great +pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, with a maudlin persuasion +that he had been crossed in something tender, though he could not, +for his life, have mentioned what it was. + +Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she watched and +waited for her brother's coming home. That could hardly be, she +knew, until an hour past midnight; but in the country silence, +which did anything but calm the trouble of her thoughts, time +lagged wearily. At last, when the darkness and stillness had +seemed for hours to thicken one another, she heard the bell at the +gate. She felt as though she would have been glad that it rang on +until daylight; but it ceased, and the circles of its last sound +spread out fainter and wider in the air, and all was dead again. + +She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. Then she +arose, put on a loose robe, and went out of her room in the dark, +and up the staircase to her brother's room. His door being shut, +she softly opened it and spoke to him, approaching his bed with a +noiseless step. + +She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his neck, and drew +his face to hers. She knew that he only feigned to be asleep, but +she said nothing to him. + +He started by and by as if he were just then awakened, and asked +who that was, and what was the matter? + +'Tom, have you anything to tell me? If ever you loved me in your +life, and have anything concealed from every one besides, tell it +to me.' + +'I don't know what you mean, Loo. You have been dreaming.' + +'My dear brother:' she laid her head down on his pillow, and her +hair flowed over him as if she would hide him from every one but +herself: 'is there nothing that you have to tell me? Is there +nothing you can tell me if you will? You can tell me nothing that +will change me. O Tom, tell me the truth!' + +'I don't know what you mean, Loo!' + +'As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy night, so you +must lie somewhere one night, when even I, if I am living then, +shall have left you. As I am here beside you, barefoot, unclothed, +undistinguishable in darkness, so must I lie through all the night +of my decay, until I am dust. In the name of that time, Tom, tell +me the truth now!' + +'What is it you want to know?' + +'You may be certain;' in the energy of her love she took him to her +bosom as if he were a child; 'that I will not reproach you. You +may be certain that I will be compassionate and true to you. You +may be certain that I will save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have +you nothing to tell me? Whisper very softly. Say only "yes," and +I shall understand you!' + +She turned her ear to his lips, but he remained doggedly silent. + +'Not a word, Tom?' + +'How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when I don't know what you +mean? Loo, you are a brave, kind girl, worthy I begin to think of +a better brother than I am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to +bed, go to bed.' + +'You are tired,' she whispered presently, more in her usual way. + +'Yes, I am quite tired out.' + +'You have been so hurried and disturbed to-day. Have any fresh +discoveries been made?' + +'Only those you have heard of, from - him.' + +'Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit to those +people, and that we saw those three together?' + +'No. Didn't you yourself particularly ask me to keep it quiet when +you asked me to go there with you?' + +'Yes. But I did not know then what was going to happen.' + +'Nor I neither. How could I?' + +He was very quick upon her with this retort. + +'Ought I to say, after what has happened,' said his sister, +standing by the bed - she had gradually withdrawn herself and +risen, 'that I made that visit? Should I say so? Must I say so?' + +'Good Heavens, Loo,' returned her brother, 'you are not in the +habit of asking my advice. say what you like. If you keep it to +yourself, I shall keep it to myself. If you disclose it, there's +an end of it.' + +It was too dark for either to see the other's face; but each seemed +very attentive, and to consider before speaking. + +'Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is really +implicated in this crime?' + +'I don't know. I don't see why he shouldn't be.' + +'He seemed to me an honest man.' + +'Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet not be so.' +There was a pause, for he had hesitated and stopped. + +'In short,' resumed Tom, as if he had made up his mind, 'if you +come to that, perhaps I was so far from being altogether in his +favour, that I took him outside the door to tell him quietly, that +I thought he might consider himself very well off to get such a +windfall as he had got from my sister, and that I hoped he would +make good use of it. You remember whether I took him out or not. +I say nothing against the man; he may be a very good fellow, for +anything I know; I hope he is.' + +'Was he offended by what you said?' + +'No, he took it pretty well; he was civil enough. Where are you, +Loo?' He sat up in bed and kissed her. 'Good night, my dear, good +night.' + +'You have nothing more to tell me?' + +'No. What should I have? You wouldn't have me tell you a lie!' + +'I wouldn't have you do that to-night, Tom, of all the nights in +your life; many and much happier as I hope they will be.' + +'Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am sure I wonder I +don't say anything to get to sleep. Go to bed, go to bed.' + +Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet over his +head, and lay as still as if that time had come by which she had +adjured him. She stood for some time at the bedside before she +slowly moved away. She stopped at the door, looked back when she +had opened it, and asked him if he had called her? But he lay +still, and she softly closed the door and returned to her room. + +Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone, +crept out of bed, fastened his door, and threw himself upon his +pillow again: tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly loving +her, hatefully but impenitently spurning himself, and no less +hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the good in the world. + + + +CHAPTER IX - HEARING THE LAST OF IT + + + +MRS. SPARSIT, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr. +Bounderby's retreat, kept such a sharp look-out, night and day, +under her Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of +lighthouses on an iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent +mariners from that bold rock her Roman nose and the dark and craggy +region in its neighbourhood, but for the placidity of her manner. +Although it was hard to believe that her retiring for the night +could be anything but a form, so severely wide awake were those +classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did it seem that her +rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her manner of +sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty mittens +(they were constructed of a cool fabric like a meat-safe), or of +ambling to unknown places of destination with her foot in her +cotton stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that most observers would +have been constrained to suppose her a dove, embodied by some freak +of nature, in the earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook-beaked +order. + +She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How +she got from story to story was a mystery beyond solution. A lady +so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be +suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet +her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea. +Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was +never hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the +roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and +dignity on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever +seen by human vision to go at a great pace. + +She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant +conversation with him soon after her arrival. She made him her +stately curtsey in the garden, one morning before breakfast. + +'It appears but yesterday, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that I had the +honour of receiving you at the Bank, when you were so good as to +wish to be made acquainted with Mr. Bounderby's address.' + +'An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the +course of Ages,' said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs. +Sparsit with the most indolent of all possible airs. + +'We live in a singular world, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. + +'I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to +have made a remark, similar in effect, though not so +epigrammatically expressed.' + +'A singular world, I would say, sir,' pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after +acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of her dark eyebrows, +not altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its +dulcet tones; 'as regards the intimacies we form at one time, with +individuals we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, +that on that occasion you went so far as to say you were actually +apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.' + +'Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves. +I availed myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and +it is unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. +Sparsit's talent for - in fact for anything requiring accuracy - +with a combination of strength of mind - and Family - is too +habitually developed to admit of any question.' He was almost +falling asleep over this compliment; it took him so long to get +through, and his mind wandered so much in the course of its +execution. + +'You found Miss Gradgrind - I really cannot call her Mrs. +Bounderby; it's very absurd of me - as youthful as I described +her?' asked Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly. + +'You drew her portrait perfectly,' said Mr. Harthouse. 'Presented +her dead image.' + +'Very engaging, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly +to revolve over one another. + +'Highly so.' + +'It used to be considered,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that Miss Gradgrind +was wanting in animation, but I confess she appears to me +considerably and strikingly improved in that respect. Ay, and +indeed here is Mr. Bounderby!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head +a great many times, as if she had been talking and thinking of no +one else. 'How do you find yourself this morning, sir? Pray let +us see you cheerful, sir.' + +Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and lightenings +of his load, had by this time begun to have the effect of making +Mr. Bounderby softer than usual towards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder +than usual to most other people from his wife downward. So, when +Mrs. Sparsit said with forced lightness of heart, 'You want your +breakfast, sir, but I dare say Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to +preside at the table,' Mr. Bounderby replied, 'If I waited to be +taken care of by my wife, ma'am, I believe you know pretty well I +should wait till Doomsday, so I'll trouble you to take charge of +the teapot.' Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her old position +at table. + +This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. She was so +humble withal, that when Louisa appeared, she rose, protesting she +never could think of sitting in that place under existing +circumstances, often as she had had the honour of making Mr. +Bounderby's breakfast, before Mrs. Gradgrind - she begged pardon, +she meant to say Miss Bounderby - she hoped to be excused, but she +really could not get it right yet, though she trusted to become +familiar with it by and by - had assumed her present position. It +was only (she observed) because Miss Gradgrind happened to be a +little late, and Mr. Bounderby's time was so very precious, and she +knew it of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the +moment, that she had taken the liberty of complying with his +request; long as his will had been a law to her. + +'There! Stop where you are, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'stop +where you are! Mrs. Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of +the trouble, I believe.' + +'Don't say that, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost with severity, +'because that is very unkind to Mrs. Bounderby. And to be unkind +is not to be you, sir.' + +'You may set your mind at rest, ma'am. - You can take it very +quietly, can't you, Loo?' said Mr. Bounderby, in a blustering way +to his wife. + +'Of course. It is of no moment. Why should it be of any +importance to me?' + +'Why should it be of any importance to any one, Mrs. Sparsit, +ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby, swelling with a sense of slight. 'You +attach too much importance to these things, ma'am. By George, +you'll be corrupted in some of your notions here. You are old- +fashioned, ma'am. You are behind Tom Gradgrind's children's time.' + +'What is the matter with you?' asked Louisa, coldly surprised. +'What has given you offence?' + +'Offence!' repeated Bounderby. 'Do you suppose if there was any +offence given me, I shouldn't name it, and request to have it +corrected? I am a straightforward man, I believe. I don't go +beating about for side-winds.' + +'I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too diffident, or +too delicate,' Louisa answered him composedly: 'I have never made +that objection to you, either as a child or as a woman. I don't +understand what you would have.' + +'Have?' returned Mr. Bounderby. 'Nothing. Otherwise, don't you, +Loo Bounderby, know thoroughly well that I, Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown, would have it?' + +She looked at him, as he struck the table and made the teacups +ring, with a proud colour in her face that was a new change, Mr. +Harthouse thought. 'You are incomprehensible this morning,' said +Louisa. 'Pray take no further trouble to explain yourself. I am +not curious to know your meaning. What does it matter?' + +Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon +idly gay on indifferent subjects. But from this day, the Sparsit +action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more +together, and strengthened the dangerous alienation from her +husband and confidence against him with another, into which she had +fallen by degrees so fine that she could not retrace them if she +tried. But whether she ever tried or no, lay hidden in her own +closed heart. + +Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular occasion, +that, assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after breakfast, and being +then alone with him in the hall, she imprinted a chaste kiss upon +his hand, murmured 'My benefactor!' and retired, overwhelmed with +grief. Yet it is an indubitable fact, within the cognizance of +this history, that five minutes after he had left the house in the +self-same hat, the same descendant of the Scadgerses and connexion +by matrimony of the Powlers, shook her right-hand mitten at his +portrait, made a contemptuous grimace at that work of art, and said +'Serve you right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it.' + +Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, when Bitzer appeared. Bitzer +had come down by train, shrieking and rattling over the long line +of arches that bestrode the wild country of past and present coal- +pits, with an express from Stone Lodge. It was a hasty note to +inform Louisa that Mrs. Gradgrind lay very ill. She had never been +well within her daughter's knowledge; but, she had declined within +the last few days, had continued sinking all through the night, and +was now as nearly dead, as her limited capacity of being in any +state that implied the ghost of an intention to get out of it, +allowed. + +Accompanied by the lightest of porters, fit colourless servitor at +Death's door when Mrs. Gradgrind knocked, Louisa rumbled to +Coketown, over the coal-pits past and present, and was whirled into +its smoky jaws. She dismissed the messenger to his own devices, +and rode away to her old home. + +She had seldom been there since her marriage. Her father was +usually sifting and sifting at his parliamentary cinder-heap in +London (without being observed to turn up many precious articles +among the rubbish), and was still hard at it in the national dust- +yard. Her mother had taken it rather as a disturbance than +otherwise, to be visited, as she reclined upon her sofa; young +people, Louisa felt herself all unfit for; Sissy she had never +softened to again, since the night when the stroller's child had +raised her eyes to look at Mr. Bounderby's intended wife. She had +no inducements to go back, and had rarely gone. + +Neither, as she approached her old home now, did any of the best +influences of old home descend upon her. The dreams of childhood - +its airy fables; its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible +adornments of the world beyond: so good to be believed in once, so +good to be remembered when outgrown, for then the least among them +rises to the stature of a great Charity in the heart, suffering +little children to come into the midst of it, and to keep with +their pure hands a garden in the stony ways of this world, wherein +it were better for all the children of Adam that they should +oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and not worldly-wise - +what had she to do with these? Remembrances of how she had +journeyed to the little that she knew, by the enchanted roads of +what she and millions of innocent creatures had hoped and imagined; +of how, first coming upon Reason through the tender light of Fancy, +she had seen it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as +itself; not a grim Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound +hand to foot, and its big dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, +never to be moved by anything but so many calculated tons of +leverage - what had she to do with these? Her remembrances of home +and childhood were remembrances of the drying up of every spring +and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. The golden +waters were not there. They were flowing for the fertilization of +the land where grapes are gathered from thorns, and figs from +thistles. + +She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon her, into the +house and into her mother's room. Since the time of her leaving +home, Sissy had lived with the rest of the family on equal terms. +Sissy was at her mother's side; and Jane, her sister, now ten or +twelve years old, was in the room. + +There was great trouble before it could be made known to Mrs. +Gradgrind that her eldest child was there. She reclined, propped +up, from mere habit, on a couch: as nearly in her old usual +attitude, as anything so helpless could be kept in. She had +positively refused to take to her bed; on the ground that if she +did, she would never hear the last of it. + +Her feeble voice sounded so far away in her bundle of shawls, and +the sound of another voice addressing her seemed to take such a +long time in getting down to her ears, that she might have been +lying at the bottom of a well. The poor lady was nearer Truth than +she ever had been: which had much to do with it. + +On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was there, she replied, at cross- +purposes, that she had never called him by that name since he +married Louisa; that pending her choice of an objectionable name, +she had called him J; and that she could not at present depart from +that regulation, not being yet provided with a permanent +substitute. Louisa had sat by her for some minutes, and had spoken +to her often, before she arrived at a clear understanding who it +was. She then seemed to come to it all at once. + +'Well, my dear,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, 'and I hope you are going on +satisfactorily to yourself. It was all your father's doing. He +set his heart upon it. And he ought to know.' + +'I want to hear of you, mother; not of myself.' + +'You want to hear of me, my dear? That's something new, I am sure, +when anybody wants to hear of me. Not at all well, Louisa. Very +faint and giddy.' + +'Are you in pain, dear mother?' + +'I think there's a pain somewhere in the room,' said Mrs. +Gradgrind, 'but I couldn't positively say that I have got it.' + +After this strange speech, she lay silent for some time. Louisa, +holding her hand, could feel no pulse; but kissing it, could see a +slight thin thread of life in fluttering motion. + +'You very seldom see your sister,' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'She grows +like you. I wish you would look at her. Sissy, bring her here.' + +She was brought, and stood with her hand in her sister's. Louisa +had observed her with her arm round Sissy's neck, and she felt the +difference of this approach. + +'Do you see the likeness, Louisa?' + +'Yes, mother. I should think her like me. But - ' + +'Eh! Yes, I always say so,' Mrs. Gradgrind cried, with unexpected +quickness. 'And that reminds me. I - I want to speak to you, my +dear. Sissy, my good girl, leave us alone a minute.' Louisa had +relinquished the hand: had thought that her sister's was a better +and brighter face than hers had ever been: had seen in it, not +without a rising feeling of resentment, even in that place and at +that time, something of the gentleness of the other face in the +room; the sweet face with the trusting eyes, made paler than +watching and sympathy made it, by the rich dark hair. + +Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw her lying with an awful lull +upon her face, like one who was floating away upon some great +water, all resistance over, content to be carried down the stream. +She put the shadow of a hand to her lips again, and recalled her. + +'You were going to speak to me, mother.' + +'Eh? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You know your father is almost +always away now, and therefore I must write to him about it.' + +'About what, mother? Don't be troubled. About what?' + +'You must remember, my dear, that whenever I have said anything, on +any subject, I have never heard the last of it: and consequently, +that I have long left off saying anything.' + +'I can hear you, mother.' But, it was only by dint of bending down +to her ear, and at the same time attentively watching the lips as +they moved, that she could link such faint and broken sounds into +any chain of connexion. + +'You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your brother. Ologies +of all kinds from morning to night. If there is any Ology left, of +any description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all +I can say is, I hope I shall never hear its name.' + +'I can hear you, mother, when you have strength to go on.' This, +to keep her from floating away. + +'But there is something - not an Ology at all - that your father +has missed, or forgotten, Louisa. I don't know what it is. I have +often sat with Sissy near me, and thought about it. I shall never +get its name now. But your father may. It makes me restless. I +want to write to him, to find out for God's sake, what it is. Give +me a pen, give me a pen.' + +Even the power of restlessness was gone, except from the poor head, +which could just turn from side to side. + +She fancied, however, that her request had been complied with, and +that the pen she could not have held was in her hand. It matters +little what figures of wonderful no-meaning she began to trace upon +her wrappers. The hand soon stopped in the midst of them; the +light that had always been feeble and dim behind the weak +transparency, went out; and even Mrs. Gradgrind, emerged from the +shadow in which man walketh and disquieteth himself in vain, took +upon her the dread solemnity of the sages and patriarchs. + + + +CHAPTER X - MRS. SPARSIT'S STAIRCASE + + + +MRS. SPARSIT'S nerves being slow to recover their tone, the worthy +woman made a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby's +retreat, where, notwithstanding her anchorite turn of mind based +upon her becoming consciousness of her altered station, she +resigned herself with noble fortitude to lodging, as one may say, +in clover, and feeding on the fat of the land. During the whole +term of this recess from the guardianship of the Bank, Mrs. Sparsit +was a pattern of consistency; continuing to take such pity on Mr. +Bounderby to his face, as is rarely taken on man, and to call his +portrait a Noodle to its face, with the greatest acrimony and +contempt. + +Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive composition that +Mrs. Sparsit was a highly superior woman to perceive that he had +that general cross upon him in his deserts (for he had not yet +settled what it was), and further that Louisa would have objected +to her as a frequent visitor if it had comported with his greatness +that she should object to anything he chose to do, resolved not to +lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So when her nerves were strung +up to the pitch of again consuming sweetbreads in solitude, he said +to her at the dinner-table, on the day before her departure, 'I +tell you what, ma'am; you shall come down here of a Saturday, while +the fine weather lasts, and stay till Monday.' To which Mrs. +Sparsit returned, in effect, though not of the Mahomedan +persuasion: 'To hear is to obey.' + +Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman; but she took an idea in +the nature of an allegorical fancy, into her head. Much watching +of Louisa, and much consequent observation of her impenetrable +demeanour, which keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit's edge, +must have given her as it were a lift, in the way of inspiration. +She erected in her mind a mighty Staircase, with a dark pit of +shame and ruin at the bottom; and down those stairs, from day to +day and hour to hour, she saw Louisa coming. + +It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit's life, to look up at her +staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down. Sometimes slowly, +sometimes quickly, sometimes several steps at one bout, sometimes +stopping, never turning back. If she had once turned back, it +might have been the death of Mrs. Sparsit in spleen and grief. + +She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on the day, when +Mr. Bounderby issued the weekly invitation recorded above. Mrs. +Sparsit was in good spirits, and inclined to be conversational. + +'And pray, sir,' said she, 'if I may venture to ask a question +appertaining to any subject on which you show reserve - which is +indeed hardy in me, for I well know you have a reason for +everything you do - have you received intelligence respecting the +robbery?' + +'Why, ma'am, no; not yet. Under the circumstances, I didn't expect +it yet. Rome wasn't built in a day, ma'am.' + +'Very true, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head. + +'Nor yet in a week, ma'am.' + +'No, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a gentle melancholy +upon her. + +'In a similar manner, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'I can wait, you +know. If Romulus and Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait. +They were better off in their youth than I was, however. They had +a she-wolf for a nurse; I had only a she-wolf for a grandmother. +She didn't give any milk, ma'am; she gave bruises. She was a +regular Alderney at that.' + +'Ah!' Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered. + +'No, ma'am,' continued Bounderby, 'I have not heard anything more +about it. It's in hand, though; and young Tom, who rather sticks +to business at present - something new for him; he hadn't the +schooling I had - is helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and +let it seem to blow over. Do what you like under the rose, but +don't give a sign of what you're about; or half a hundred of 'em +will combine together and get this fellow who has bolted, out of +reach for good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves will grow in +confidence by little and little, and we shall have 'em.' + +'Very sagacious indeed, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Very +interesting. The old woman you mentioned, sir - ' + +'The old woman I mentioned, ma'am,' said Bounderby, cutting the +matter short, as it was nothing to boast about, 'is not laid hold +of; but, she may take her oath she will be, if that is any +satisfaction to her villainous old mind. In the mean time, ma'am, +I am of opinion, if you ask me my opinion, that the less she is +talked about, the better.' + +The same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting from +her packing operations, looked towards her great staircase and saw +Louisa still descending. + +She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking very +low; he stood leaning over her, as they whispered together, and his +face almost touched her hair. 'If not quite!' said Mrs. Sparsit, +straining her hawk's eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too +distant to hear a word of their discourse, or even to know that +they were speaking softly, otherwise than from the expression of +their figures; but what they said was this: + +'You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse?' + +'Oh, perfectly!' + +'His face, and his manner, and what he said?' + +'Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to +be. Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. It was knowing to hold +forth, in the humble-virtue school of eloquence; but, I assure you +I thought at the time, "My good fellow, you are over-doing this!"' + +'It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that man.' + +'My dear Louisa - as Tom says.' Which he never did say. 'You know +no good of the fellow?' + +'No, certainly.' + +'Nor of any other such person?' + +'How can I,' she returned, with more of her first manner on her +than he had lately seen, 'when I know nothing of them, men or +women?' + +'My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submissive +representation of your devoted friend, who knows something of +several varieties of his excellent fellow-creatures - for excellent +they are, I am quite ready to believe, in spite of such little +foibles as always helping themselves to what they can get hold of. +This fellow talks. Well; every fellow talks. He professes +morality. Well; all sorts of humbugs profess morality. From the +House of Commons to the House of Correction, there is a general +profession of morality, except among our people; it really is that +exception which makes our people quite reviving. You saw and heard +the case. Here was one of the fluffy classes pulled up extremely +short by my esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby - who, as we know, is not +possessed of that delicacy which would soften so tight a hand. The +member of the fluffy classes was injured, exasperated, left the +house grumbling, met somebody who proposed to him to go in for some +share in this Bank business, went in, put something in his pocket +which had nothing in it before, and relieved his mind extremely. +Really he would have been an uncommon, instead of a common, fellow, +if he had not availed himself of such an opportunity. Or he may +have originated it altogether, if he had the cleverness.' + +'I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,' returned Louisa, +after sitting thoughtful awhile, 'to be so ready to agree with you, +and to be so lightened in my heart by what you say.' + +'I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse. I have talked it +over with my friend Tom more than once - of course I remain on +terms of perfect confidence with Tom - and he is quite of my +opinion, and I am quite of his. Will you walk?' + +They strolled away, among the lanes beginning to be indistinct in +the twilight - she leaning on his arm - and she little thought how +she was going down, down, down, Mrs. Sparsit's staircase. + +Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing. When Louisa had +arrived at the bottom and disappeared in the gulf, it might fall in +upon her if it would; but, until then, there it was to be, a +Building, before Mrs. Sparsit's eyes. And there Louisa always was, +upon it. + +And always gliding down, down, down! + +Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come and go; she heard of him here +and there; she saw the changes of the face he had studied; she, +too, remarked to a nicety how and when it clouded, how and when it +cleared; she kept her black eyes wide open, with no touch of pity, +with no touch of compunction, all absorbed in interest. In the +interest of seeing her, ever drawing, with no hand to stay her, +nearer and nearer to the bottom of this new Giant's Staircase. + +With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby as contradistinguished +from his portrait, Mrs. Sparsit had not the smallest intention of +interrupting the descent. Eager to see it accomplished, and yet +patient, she waited for the last fall, as for the ripeness and +fulness of the harvest of her hopes. Hushed in expectancy, she +kept her wary gaze upon the stairs; and seldom so much as darkly +shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), at the figure coming +down. + + + +CHAPTER XI - LOWER AND LOWER + + + +THE figure descended the great stairs, steadily, steadily; always +verging, like a weight in deep water, to the black gulf at the +bottom. + +Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife's decease, made an expedition +from London, and buried her in a business-like manner. He then +returned with promptitude to the national cinder-heap, and resumed +his sifting for the odds and ends he wanted, and his throwing of +the dust about into the eyes of other people who wanted other odds +and ends - in fact resumed his parliamentary duties. + +In the meantime, Mrs. Sparsit kept unwinking watch and ward. +Separated from her staircase, all the week, by the length of iron +road dividing Coketown from the country house, she yet maintained +her cat-like observation of Louisa, through her husband, through +her brother, through James Harthouse, through the outsides of +letters and packets, through everything animate and inanimate that +at any time went near the stairs. 'Your foot on the last step, my +lady,' said Mrs. Sparsit, apostrophizing the descending figure, +with the aid of her threatening mitten, 'and all your art shall +never blind me.' + +Art or nature though, the original stock of Louisa's character or +the graft of circumstances upon it, - her curious reserve did +baffle, while it stimulated, one as sagacious as Mrs. Sparsit. +There were times when Mr. James Harthouse was not sure of her. +There were times when he could not read the face he had studied so +long; and when this lonely girl was a greater mystery to him, than +any woman of the world with a ring of satellites to help her. + +So the time went on; until it happened that Mr. Bounderby was +called away from home by business which required his presence +elsewhere, for three or four days. It was on a Friday that he +intimated this to Mrs. Sparsit at the Bank, adding: 'But you'll go +down to-morrow, ma'am, all the same. You'll go down just as if I +was there. It will make no difference to you.' + +'Pray, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, reproachfully, 'let me beg you +not to say that. Your absence will make a vast difference to me, +sir, as I think you very well know.' + +'Well, ma'am, then you must get on in my absence as well as you +can,' said Mr. Bounderby, not displeased. + +'Mr. Bounderby,' retorted Mrs. Sparsit, 'your will is to me a law, +sir; otherwise, it might be my inclination to dispute your kind +commands, not feeling sure that it will be quite so agreeable to +Miss Gradgrind to receive me, as it ever is to your own munificent +hospitality. But you shall say no more, sir. I will go, upon your +invitation.' + +'Why, when I invite you to my house, ma'am,' said Bounderby, +opening his eyes, 'I should hope you want no other invitation.' + +'No, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I should hope not. Say +no more, sir. I would, sir, I could see you gay again.' + +'What do you mean, ma'am?' blustered Bounderby. + +'Sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, 'there was wont to be an elasticity +in you which I sadly miss. Be buoyant, sir!' + +Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this difficult adjuration, +backed up by her compassionate eye, could only scratch his head in +a feeble and ridiculous manner, and afterwards assert himself at a +distance, by being heard to bully the small fry of business all the +morning. + +'Bitzer,' said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon, when her patron was +gone on his journey, and the Bank was closing, 'present my +compliments to young Mr. Thomas, and ask him if he would step up +and partake of a lamb chop and walnut ketchup, with a glass of +India ale?' Young Mr. Thomas being usually ready for anything in +that way, returned a gracious answer, and followed on its heels. +'Mr. Thomas,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'these plain viands being on +table, I thought you might be tempted.' + +'Thank'ee, Mrs. Sparsit,' said the whelp. And gloomily fell to. + +'How is Mr. Harthouse, Mr. Tom?' asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +'Oh, he's all right,' said Tom. + +'Where may he be at present?' Mrs. Sparsit asked in a light +conversational manner, after mentally devoting the whelp to the +Furies for being so uncommunicative. + +'He is shooting in Yorkshire,' said Tom. 'Sent Loo a basket half +as big as a church, yesterday.' + +'The kind of gentleman, now,' said Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly, 'whom one +might wager to be a good shot!' + +'Crack,' said Tom. + +He had long been a down-looking young fellow, but this +characteristic had so increased of late, that he never raised his +eyes to any face for three seconds together. Mrs. Sparsit +consequently had ample means of watching his looks, if she were so +inclined. + +'Mr. Harthouse is a great favourite of mine,' said Mrs. Sparsit, +'as indeed he is of most people. May we expect to see him again +shortly, Mr. Tom?' + +'Why, I expect to see him to-morrow,' returned the whelp. + +'Good news!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, blandly. + +'I have got an appointment with him to meet him in the evening at +the station here,' said Tom, 'and I am going to dine with him +afterwards, I believe. He is not coming down to the country house +for a week or so, being due somewhere else. At least, he says so; +but I shouldn't wonder if he was to stop here over Sunday, and +stray that way.' + +'Which reminds me!' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Would you remember a +message to your sister, Mr. Tom, if I was to charge you with one?' + +'Well? I'll try,' returned the reluctant whelp, 'if it isn't a +long un.' + +'It is merely my respectful compliments,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'and I +fear I may not trouble her with my society this week; being still a +little nervous, and better perhaps by my poor self.' + +'Oh! If that's all,' observed Tom, 'it wouldn't much matter, even +if I was to forget it, for Loo's not likely to think of you unless +she sees you.' + +Having paid for his entertainment with this agreeable compliment, +he relapsed into a hangdog silence until there was no more India +ale left, when he said, 'Well, Mrs. Sparsit, I must be off!' and +went off. + +Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at her window all day long +looking at the customers coming in and out, watching the postmen, +keeping an eye on the general traffic of the street, revolving many +things in her mind, but, above all, keeping her attention on her +staircase. The evening come, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and +went quietly out: having her reasons for hovering in a furtive way +about the station by which a passenger would arrive from Yorkshire, +and for preferring to peep into it round pillars and corners, and +out of ladies' waiting-room windows, to appearing in its precincts +openly. + +Tom was in attendance, and loitered about until the expected train +came in. It brought no Mr. Harthouse. Tom waited until the crowd +had dispersed, and the bustle was over; and then referred to a +posted list of trains, and took counsel with porters. That done, +he strolled away idly, stopping in the street and looking up it and +down it, and lifting his hat off and putting it on again, and +yawning and stretching himself, and exhibiting all the symptoms of +mortal weariness to be expected in one who had still to wait until +the next train should come in, an hour and forty minutes hence. + +'This is a device to keep him out of the way,' said Mrs. Sparsit, +starting from the dull office window whence she had watched him +last. 'Harthouse is with his sister now!' + +It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she shot off with +her utmost swiftness to work it out. The station for the country +house was at the opposite end of the town, the time was short, the +road not easy; but she was so quick in pouncing on a disengaged +coach, so quick in darting out of it, producing her money, seizing +her ticket, and diving into the train, that she was borne along the +arches spanning the land of coal-pits past and present, as if she +had been caught up in a cloud and whirled away. + +All the journey, immovable in the air though never left behind; +plain to the dark eyes of her mind, as the electric wires which +ruled a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky, were +plain to the dark eyes of her body; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, +with the figure coming down. Very near the bottom now. Upon the +brink of the abyss. + +An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw beneath its +drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass down +the wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, cross it +into a green lane, and become hidden in a summer-growth of leaves +and branches. One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their +nests, and a bat heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the reek +of her own tread in the thick dust that felt like velvet, were all +Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she very softly closed a gate. + +She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and went +round it, peeping between the leaves at the lower windows. Most of +them were open, as they usually were in such warm weather, but +there were no lights yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden +with no better effect. She thought of the wood, and stole towards +it, heedless of long grass and briers: of worms, snails, and +slugs, and all the creeping things that be. With her dark eyes and +her hook nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. Sparsit softly crushed +her way through the thick undergrowth, so intent upon her object +that she probably would have done no less, if the wood had been a +wood of adders. + +Hark! + +The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their nests, fascinated +by the glittering of Mrs. Sparsit's eyes in the gloom, as she +stopped and listened. + +Low voices close at hand. His voice and hers. The appointment was +a device to keep the brother away! There they were yonder, by the +felled tree. + +Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. Sparsit advanced closer to +them. She drew herself up, and stood behind a tree, like Robinson +Crusoe in his ambuscade against the savages; so near to them that +at a spring, and that no great one, she could have touched them +both. He was there secretly, and had not shown himself at the +house. He had come on horseback, and must have passed through the +neighbouring fields; for his horse was tied to the meadow side of +the fence, within a few paces. + +'My dearest love,' said he, 'what could I do? Knowing you were +alone, was it possible that I could stay away?' + +'You may hang your head, to make yourself the more attractive; I +don't know what they see in you when you hold it up,' thought Mrs. +Sparsit; 'but you little think, my dearest love, whose eyes are on +you!' + +That she hung her head, was certain. She urged him to go away, she +commanded him to go away; but she neither turned her face to him, +nor raised it. Yet it was remarkable that she sat as still as ever +the amiable woman in ambuscade had seen her sit, at any period in +her life. Her hands rested in one another, like the hands of a +statue; and even her manner of speaking was not hurried. + +'My dear child,' said Harthouse; Mrs. Sparsit saw with delight that +his arm embraced her; 'will you not bear with my society for a +little while?' + +'Not here.' + +'Where, Louisa? + +'Not here.' + +'But we have so little time to make so much of, and I have come so +far, and am altogether so devoted, and distracted. There never was +a slave at once so devoted and ill-used by his mistress. To look +for your sunny welcome that has warmed me into life, and to be +received in your frozen manner, is heart-rending.' + +'Am I to say again, that I must be left to myself here?' + +'But we must meet, my dear Louisa. Where shall we meet?' + +They both started. The listener started, guiltily, too; for she +thought there was another listener among the trees. It was only +rain, beginning to fall fast, in heavy drops. + +'Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, innocently +supposing that its master is at home and will be charmed to receive +me?' + +'No!' + +'Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed; though I am the +most unfortunate fellow in the world, I believe, to have been +insensible to all other women, and to have fallen prostrate at last +under the foot of the most beautiful, and the most engaging, and +the most imperious. My dearest Louisa, I cannot go myself, or let +you go, in this hard abuse of your power.' + +Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling arm, and heard +him then and there, within her (Mrs. Sparsit's) greedy hearing, +tell her how he loved her, and how she was the stake for which he +ardently desired to play away all that he had in life. The objects +he had lately pursued, turned worthless beside her; such success as +was almost in his grasp, he flung away from him like the dirt it +was, compared with her. Its pursuit, nevertheless, if it kept him +near her, or its renunciation if it took him from her, or flight if +she shared it, or secrecy if she commanded it, or any fate, or +every fate, all was alike to him, so that she was true to him, - +the man who had seen how cast away she was, whom she had inspired +at their first meeting with an admiration, an interest, of which he +had thought himself incapable, whom she had received into her +confidence, who was devoted to her and adored her. All this, and +more, in his hurry, and in hers, in the whirl of her own gratified +malice, in the dread of being discovered, in the rapidly increasing +noise of heavy rain among the leaves, and a thunderstorm rolling up +- Mrs. Sparsit received into her mind, set off with such an +unavoidable halo of confusion and indistinctness, that when at +length he climbed the fence and led his horse away, she was not +sure where they were to meet, or when, except that they had said it +was to be that night. + +But one of them yet remained in the darkness before her; and while +she tracked that one she must be right. 'Oh, my dearest love,' +thought Mrs. Sparsit, 'you little think how well attended you are!' + +Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her enter the house. +What to do next? It rained now, in a sheet of water. Mrs. +Sparsit's white stockings were of many colours, green +predominating; prickly things were in her shoes; caterpillars slung +themselves, in hammocks of their own making, from various parts of +her dress; rills ran from her bonnet, and her Roman nose. In such +condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden in the density of the +shrubbery, considering what next? + +Lo, Louisa coming out of the house! Hastily cloaked and muffled, +and stealing away. She elopes! She falls from the lowermost +stair, and is swallowed up in the gulf. + +Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined step, +she struck into a side-path parallel with the ride. Mrs. Sparsit +followed in the shadow of the trees, at but a short distance; for +it was not easy to keep a figure in view going quickly through the +umbrageous darkness. + +When she stopped to close the side-gate without noise, Mrs. Sparsit +stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit went on. She went by the +way Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged from the green lane, crossed the +stony road, and ascended the wooden steps to the railroad. A train +for Coketown would come through presently, Mrs. Sparsit knew; so +she understood Coketown to be her first place of destination. + +In Mrs. Sparsit's limp and streaming state, no extensive +precautions were necessary to change her usual appearance; but, she +stopped under the lee of the station wall, tumbled her shawl into a +new shape, and put it on over her bonnet. So disguised she had no +fear of being recognized when she followed up the railroad steps, +and paid her money in the small office. Louisa sat waiting in a +corner. Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in another corner. Both listened +to the thunder, which was loud, and to the rain, as it washed off +the roof, and pattered on the parapets of the arches. Two or three +lamps were rained out and blown out; so, both saw the lightning to +advantage as it quivered and zigzagged on the iron tracks. + +The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, gradually +deepening to a complaint of the heart, announced the train. Fire +and steam, and smoke, and red light; a hiss, a crash, a bell, and a +shriek; Louisa put into one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into +another: the little station a desert speck in the thunderstorm. + +Though her teeth chattered in her head from wet and cold, Mrs. +Sparsit exulted hugely. The figure had plunged down the precipice, +and she felt herself, as it were, attending on the body. Could +she, who had been so active in the getting up of the funeral +triumph, do less than exult? 'She will be at Coketown long before +him,' thought Mrs. Sparsit, 'though his horse is never so good. +Where will she wait for him? And where will they go together? +Patience. We shall see.' + +The tremendous rain occasioned infinite confusion, when the train +stopped at its destination. Gutters and pipes had burst, drains +had overflowed, and streets were under water. In the first instant +of alighting, Mrs. Sparsit turned her distracted eyes towards the +waiting coaches, which were in great request. 'She will get into +one,' she considered, 'and will be away before I can follow in +another. At all risks of being run over, I must see the number, +and hear the order given to the coachman.' + +But, Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calculation. Louisa got into no +coach, and was already gone. The black eyes kept upon the +railroad-carriage in which she had travelled, settled upon it a +moment too late. The door not being opened after several minutes, +Mrs. Sparsit passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, looked in, and +found it empty. Wet through and through: with her feet squelching +and squashing in her shoes whenever she moved; with a rash of rain +upon her classical visage; with a bonnet like an over-ripe fig; +with all her clothes spoiled; with damp impressions of every +button, string, and hook-and-eye she wore, printed off upon her +highly connected back; with a stagnant verdure on her general +exterior, such as accumulates on an old park fence in a mouldy +lane; Mrs. Sparsit had no resource but to burst into tears of +bitterness and say, 'I have lost her!' + + + +CHAPTER XII - DOWN + + + +THE national dustmen, after entertaining one another with a great +many noisy little fights among themselves, had dispersed for the +present, and Mr. Gradgrind was at home for the vacation. + +He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical clock, +proving something no doubt - probably, in the main, that the Good +Samaritan was a Bad Economist. The noise of the rain did not +disturb him much; but it attracted his attention sufficiently to +make him raise his head sometimes, as if he were rather +remonstrating with the elements. When it thundered very loudly, he +glanced towards Coketown, having it in his mind that some of the +tall chimneys might be struck by lightning. + +The thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain was pouring +down like a deluge, when the door of his room opened. He looked +round the lamp upon his table, and saw, with amazement, his eldest +daughter. + +'Louisa!' + +'Father, I want to speak to you.' + +'What is the matter? How strange you look! And good Heaven,' said +Mr. Gradgrind, wondering more and more, 'have you come here exposed +to this storm?' + +She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly knew. 'Yes.' +Then she uncovered her head, and letting her cloak and hood fall +where they might, stood looking at him: so colourless, so +dishevelled, so defiant and despairing, that he was afraid of her. + +'What is it? I conjure you, Louisa, tell me what is the matter.' + +She dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold hand on his +arm. + +'Father, you have trained me from my cradle?' + +'Yes, Louisa.' + +'I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.' + +He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: 'Curse +the hour? Curse the hour?' + +'How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable +things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are +the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What +have you done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that +should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!' + +She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom. + +'If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the +void in which my whole life sinks. I did not mean to say this; +but, father, you remember the last time we conversed in this room?' + +He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that it was +with difficulty he answered, 'Yes, Louisa.' + +'What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to my lips then, +if you had given me a moment's help. I don't reproach you, father. +What you have never nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in +yourself; but O! if you had only done so long ago, or if you had +only neglected me, what a much better and much happier creature I +should have been this day!' + +On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon his +hand and groaned aloud. + +'Father, if you had known, when we were last together here, what +even I feared while I strove against it - as it has been my task +from infancy to strive against every natural prompting that has +arisen in my heart; if you had known that there lingered in my +breast, sensibilities, affections, weaknesses capable of being +cherished into strength, defying all the calculations ever made by +man, and no more known to his arithmetic than his Creator is, - +would you have given me to the husband whom I am now sure that I +hate?' + +He said, 'No. No, my poor child.' + +'Would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost and blight +that have hardened and spoiled me? Would you have robbed me - for +no one's enrichment - only for the greater desolation of this world +- of the immaterial part of my life, the spring and summer of my +belief, my refuge from what is sordid and bad in the real things +around me, my school in which I should have learned to be more +humble and more trusting with them, and to hope in my little sphere +to make them better?' + +'O no, no. No, Louisa.' + +'Yet, father, if I had been stone blind; if I had groped my way by +my sense of touch, and had been free, while I knew the shapes and +surfaces of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat, in regard to +them; I should have been a million times wiser, happier, more +loving, more contented, more innocent and human in all good +respects, than I am with the eyes I have. Now, hear what I have +come to say.' + +He moved, to support her with his arm. She rising as he did so, +they stood close together: she, with a hand upon his shoulder, +looking fixedly in his face. + +'With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which have never been +for a moment appeased; with an ardent impulse towards some region +where rules, and figures, and definitions were not quite absolute; +I have grown up, battling every inch of my way.' + +'I never knew you were unhappy, my child.' + +'Father, I always knew it. In this strife I have almost repulsed +and crushed my better angel into a demon. What I have learned has +left me doubting, misbelieving, despising, regretting, what I have +not learned; and my dismal resource has been to think that life +would soon go by, and that nothing in it could be worth the pain +and trouble of a contest.' + +'And you so young, Louisa!' he said with pity. + +'And I so young. In this condition, father - for I show you now, +without fear or favour, the ordinary deadened state of my mind as I +know it - you proposed my husband to me. I took him. I never made +a pretence to him or you that I loved him. I knew, and, father, +you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I was not wholly +indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and useful to Tom. +I made that wild escape into something visionary, and have slowly +found out how wild it was. But Tom had been the subject of all the +little tenderness of my life; perhaps he became so because I knew +so well how to pity him. It matters little now, except as it may +dispose you to think more leniently of his errors.' + +As her father held her in his arms, she put her other hand upon his +other shoulder, and still looking fixedly in his face, went on. + +'When I was irrevocably married, there rose up into rebellion +against the tie, the old strife, made fiercer by all those causes +of disparity which arise out of our two individual natures, and +which no general laws shall ever rule or state for me, father, +until they shall be able to direct the anatomist where to strike +his knife into the secrets of my soul.' + +'Louisa!' he said, and said imploringly; for he well remembered +what had passed between them in their former interview. + +'I do not reproach you, father, I make no complaint. I am here +with another object.' + +'What can I do, child? Ask me what you will.' + +'I am coming to it. Father, chance then threw into my way a new +acquaintance; a man such as I had had no experience of; used to the +world; light, polished, easy; making no pretences; avowing the low +estimate of everything, that I was half afraid to form in secret; +conveying to me almost immediately, though I don't know how or by +what degrees, that he understood me, and read my thoughts. I could +not find that he was worse than I. There seemed to be a near +affinity between us. I only wondered it should be worth his while, +who cared for nothing else, to care so much for me.' + +'For you, Louisa!' + +Her father might instinctively have loosened his hold, but that he +felt her strength departing from her, and saw a wild dilating fire +in the eyes steadfastly regarding him. + +'I say nothing of his plea for claiming my confidence. It matters +very little how he gained it. Father, he did gain it. What you +know of the story of my marriage, he soon knew, just as well.' + +Her father's face was ashy white, and he held her in both his arms. + +'I have done no worse, I have not disgraced you. But if you ask me +whether I have loved him, or do love him, I tell you plainly, +father, that it may be so. I don't know.' + +She took her hands suddenly from his shoulders, and pressed them +both upon her side; while in her face, not like itself - and in her +figure, drawn up, resolute to finish by a last effort what she had +to say - the feelings long suppressed broke loose. + +'This night, my husband being away, he has been with me, declaring +himself my lover. This minute he expects me, for I could release +myself of his presence by no other means. I do not know that I am +sorry, I do not know that I am ashamed, I do not know that I am +degraded in my own esteem. All that I know is, your philosophy and +your teaching will not save me. Now, father, you have brought me +to this. Save me by some other means!' + +He tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking on the floor, +but she cried out in a terrible voice, 'I shall die if you hold me! +Let me fall upon the ground!' And he laid her down there, and saw +the pride of his heart and the triumph of his system, lying, an +insensible heap, at his feet. + + +END OF THE SECOND BOOK + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD - GARNERING + + + + +CHAPTER I - ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL + + + +LOUISA awoke from a torpor, and her eyes languidly opened on her +old bed at home, and her old room. It seemed, at first, as if all +that had happened since the days when these objects were familiar +to her were the shadows of a dream, but gradually, as the objects +became more real to her sight, the events became more real to her +mind. + +She could scarcely move her head for pain and heaviness, her eyes +were strained and sore, and she was very weak. A curious passive +inattention had such possession of her, that the presence of her +little sister in the room did not attract her notice for some time. +Even when their eyes had met, and her sister had approached the +bed, Louisa lay for minutes looking at her in silence, and +suffering her timidly to hold her passive hand, before she asked: + +'When was I brought to this room?' + +'Last night, Louisa.' + +'Who brought me here?' + +'Sissy, I believe.' + +'Why do you believe so?' + +'Because I found her here this morning. She didn't come to my +bedside to wake me, as she always does; and I went to look for her. +She was not in her own room either; and I went looking for her all +over the house, until I found her here taking care of you and +cooling your head. Will you see father? Sissy said I was to tell +him when you woke.' + +'What a beaming face you have, Jane!' said Louisa, as her young +sister - timidly still - bent down to kiss her. + +'Have I? I am very glad you think so. I am sure it must be +Sissy's doing.' + +The arm Louisa had begun to twine around her neck, unbent itself. +'You can tell father if you will.' Then, staying her for a moment, +she said, 'It was you who made my room so cheerful, and gave it +this look of welcome?' + +'Oh no, Louisa, it was done before I came. It was - ' + +Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard no more. When her sister +had withdrawn, she turned her head back again, and lay with her +face towards the door, until it opened and her father entered. + +He had a jaded anxious look upon him, and his hand, usually steady, +trembled in hers. He sat down at the side of the bed, tenderly +asking how she was, and dwelling on the necessity of her keeping +very quiet after her agitation and exposure to the weather last +night. He spoke in a subdued and troubled voice, very different +from his usual dictatorial manner; and was often at a loss for +words. + +'My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.' He was so much at a loss at +that place, that he stopped altogether. He tried again. + +'My unfortunate child.' The place was so difficult to get over, +that he tried again. + +'It would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to endeavour to tell you how +overwhelmed I have been, and still am, by what broke upon me last +night. The ground on which I stand has ceased to be solid under my +feet. The only support on which I leaned, and the strength of +which it seemed, and still does seem, impossible to question, has +given way in an instant. I am stunned by these discoveries. I +have no selfish meaning in what I say; but I find the shock of what +broke upon me last night, to be very heavy indeed.' + +She could give him no comfort herein. She had suffered the wreck +of her whole life upon the rock. + +'I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by any happy chance +undeceived me some time ago, it would have been better for us both; +better for your peace, and better for mine. For I am sensible that +it may not have been a part of my system to invite any confidence +of that kind. I had proved my - my system to myself, and I have +rigidly administered it; and I must bear the responsibility of its +failures. I only entreat you to believe, my favourite child, that +I have meant to do right.' + +He said it earnestly, and to do him justice he had. In gauging +fathomless deeps with his little mean excise-rod, and in staggering +over the universe with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had +meant to do great things. Within the limits of his short tether he +had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers of existence with +greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages +whose company he kept. + +'I am well assured of what you say, father. I know I have been +your favourite child. I know you have intended to make me happy. +I have never blamed you, and I never shall.' + +He took her outstretched hand, and retained it in his. + +'My dear, I have remained all night at my table, pondering again +and again on what has so painfully passed between us. When I +consider your character; when I consider that what has been known +to me for hours, has been concealed by you for years; when I +consider under what immediate pressure it has been forced from you +at last; I come to the conclusion that I cannot but mistrust +myself.' + +He might have added more than all, when he saw the face now looking +at him. He did add it in effect, perhaps, as he softly moved her +scattered hair from her forehead with his hand. Such little +actions, slight in another man, were very noticeable in him; and +his daughter received them as if they had been words of contrition. + +'But,' said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with hesitation, as well as +with a wretched sense of happiness, 'if I see reason to mistrust +myself for the past, Louisa, I should also mistrust myself for the +present and the future. To speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am +far from feeling convinced now, however differently I might have +felt only this time yesterday, that I am fit for the trust you +repose in me; that I know how to respond to the appeal you have +come home to make to me; that I have the right instinct - supposing +it for the moment to be some quality of that nature - how to help +you, and to set you right, my child.' + +She had turned upon her pillow, and lay with her face upon her arm, +so that he could not see it. All her wildness and passion had +subsided; but, though softened, she was not in tears. Her father +was changed in nothing so much as in the respect that he would have +been glad to see her in tears. + +'Some persons hold,' he pursued, still hesitating, 'that there is a +wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart. I +have not supposed so; but, as I have said, I mistrust myself now. +I have supposed the head to be all-sufficient. It may not be all- +sufficient; how can I venture this morning to say it is! If that +other kind of wisdom should be what I have neglected, and should be +the instinct that is wanted, Louisa - ' + +He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he were half unwilling to +admit it even now. She made him no answer, lying before him on her +bed, still half-dressed, much as he had seen her lying on the floor +of his room last night. + +'Louisa,' and his hand rested on her hair again, 'I have been +absent from here, my dear, a good deal of late; and though your +sister's training has been pursued according to - the system,' he +appeared to come to that word with great reluctance always, 'it has +necessarily been modified by daily associations begun, in her case, +at an early age. I ask you - ignorantly and humbly, my daughter - +for the better, do you think?' + +'Father,' she replied, without stirring, 'if any harmony has been +awakened in her young breast that was mute in mine until it turned +to discord, let her thank Heaven for it, and go upon her happier +way, taking it as her greatest blessing that she has avoided my +way.' + +'O my child, my child!' he said, in a forlorn manner, 'I am an +unhappy man to see you thus! What avails it to me that you do not +reproach me, if I so bitterly reproach myself!' He bent his head, +and spoke low to her. 'Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change +may have been slowly working about me in this house, by mere love +and gratitude: that what the Head had left undone and could not +do, the Heart may have been doing silently. Can it be so?' + +She made him no reply. + +'I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How could I be +arrogant, and you before me! Can it be so? Is it so, my dear?' +He looked upon her once more, lying cast away there; and without +another word went out of the room. He had not been long gone, when +she heard a light tread near the door, and knew that some one stood +beside her. + +She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she should be seen +in her distress, and that the involuntary look she had so resented +should come to this fulfilment, smouldered within her like an +unwholesome fire. All closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. +The air that would be healthful to the earth, the water that would +enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So +in her bosom even now; the strongest qualities she possessed, long +turned upon themselves, became a heap of obduracy, that rose +against a friend. + +It was well that soft touch came upon her neck, and that she +understood herself to be supposed to have fallen asleep. The +sympathetic hand did not claim her resentment. Let it lie there, +let it lie. + +It lay there, warming into life a crowd of gentler thoughts; and +she rested. As she softened with the quiet, and the consciousness +of being so watched, some tears made their way into her eyes. The +face touched hers, and she knew that there were tears upon it too, +and she the cause of them. + +As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat up, Sissy retired, so +that she stood placidly near the bedside. + +'I hope I have not disturbed you. I have come to ask if you would +let me stay with you?' + +'Why should you stay with me? My sister will miss you. You are +everything to her.' + +'Am I?' returned Sissy, shaking her head. 'I would be something to +you, if I might.' + +'What?' said Louisa, almost sternly. + +'Whatever you want most, if I could be that. At all events, I +would like to try to be as near it as I can. And however far off +that may be, I will never tire of trying. Will you let me?' + +'My father sent you to ask me.' + +'No indeed,' replied Sissy. 'He told me that I might come in now, +but he sent me away from the room this morning - or at least - ' + +She hesitated and stopped. + +'At least, what?' said Louisa, with her searching eyes upon her. + +'I thought it best myself that I should be sent away, for I felt +very uncertain whether you would like to find me here.' + +'Have I always hated you so much?' + +'I hope not, for I have always loved you, and have always wished +that you should know it. But you changed to me a little, shortly +before you left home. Not that I wondered at it. You knew so +much, and I knew so little, and it was so natural in many ways, +going as you were among other friends, that I had nothing to +complain of, and was not at all hurt.' + +Her colour rose as she said it modestly and hurriedly. Louisa +understood the loving pretence, and her heart smote her. + +'May I try?' said Sissy, emboldened to raise her hand to the neck +that was insensibly drooping towards her. + +Louisa, taking down the hand that would have embraced her in +another moment, held it in one of hers, and answered: + +'First, Sissy, do you know what I am? I am so proud and so +hardened, so confused and troubled, so resentful and unjust to +every one and to myself, that everything is stormy, dark, and +wicked to me. Does not that repel you?' + +'No!' + +'I am so unhappy, and all that should have made me otherwise is so +laid waste, that if I had been bereft of sense to this hour, and +instead of being as learned as you think me, had to begin to +acquire the simplest truths, I could not want a guide to peace, +contentment, honour, all the good of which I am quite devoid, more +abjectly than I do. Does not that repel you?' + +'No!' + +In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up of her +old devoted spirit, the once deserted girl shone like a beautiful +light upon the darkness of the other. + +Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp her neck and join its +fellow there. She fell upon her knees, and clinging to this +stroller's child looked up at her almost with veneration. + +'Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have compassion on my great need, +and let me lay this head of mine upon a loving heart!' + +'O lay it here!' cried Sissy. 'Lay it here, my dear.' + + + +CHAPTER II - VERY RIDICULOUS + + + +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE passed a whole night and a day in a state of so +much hurry, that the World, with its best glass in his eye, would +scarcely have recognized him during that insane interval, as the +brother Jem of the honourable and jocular member. He was +positively agitated. He several times spoke with an emphasis, +similar to the vulgar manner. He went in and went out in an +unaccountable way, like a man without an object. He rode like a +highwayman. In a word, he was so horribly bored by existing +circumstances, that he forgot to go in for boredom in the manner +prescribed by the authorities. + +After putting his horse at Coketown through the storm, as if it +were a leap, he waited up all night: from time to time ringing his +bell with the greatest fury, charging the porter who kept watch +with delinquency in withholding letters or messages that could not +fail to have been entrusted to him, and demanding restitution on +the spot. The dawn coming, the morning coming, and the day coming, +and neither message nor letter coming with either, he went down to +the country house. There, the report was, Mr. Bounderby away, and +Mrs. Bounderby in town. Left for town suddenly last evening. Not +even known to be gone until receipt of message, importing that her +return was not to be expected for the present. + +In these circumstances he had nothing for it but to follow her to +town. He went to the house in town. Mrs. Bounderby not there. He +looked in at the Bank. Mr. Bounderby away and Mrs. Sparsit away. +Mrs. Sparsit away? Who could have been reduced to sudden extremity +for the company of that griffin! + +'Well! I don't know,' said Tom, who had his own reasons for being +uneasy about it. 'She was off somewhere at daybreak this morning. +She's always full of mystery; I hate her. So I do that white chap; +he's always got his blinking eyes upon a fellow.' + +'Where were you last night, Tom?' + +'Where was I last night!' said Tom. 'Come! I like that. I was +waiting for you, Mr. Harthouse, till it came down as I never saw it +come down before. Where was I too! Where were you, you mean.' + +'I was prevented from coming - detained.' + +'Detained!' murmured Tom. 'Two of us were detained. I was +detained looking for you, till I lost every train but the mail. It +would have been a pleasant job to go down by that on such a night, +and have to walk home through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in +town after all.' + +'Where?' + +'Where? Why, in my own bed at Bounderby's.' + +'Did you see your sister?' + +'How the deuce,' returned Tom, staring, 'could I see my sister when +she was fifteen miles off?' + +Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman to whom he was +so true a friend, Mr. Harthouse disembarrassed himself of that +interview with the smallest conceivable amount of ceremony, and +debated for the hundredth time what all this could mean? He made +only one thing clear. It was, that whether she was in town or out +of town, whether he had been premature with her who was so hard to +comprehend, or she had lost courage, or they were discovered, or +some mischance or mistake, at present incomprehensible, had +occurred, he must remain to confront his fortune, whatever it was. +The hotel where he was known to live when condemned to that region +of blackness, was the stake to which he was tied. As to all the +rest - What will be, will be. + +'So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or an assignation, +or a penitent remonstrance, or an impromptu wrestle with my friend +Bounderby in the Lancashire manner - which would seem as likely as +anything else in the present state of affairs - I'll dine,' said +Mr. James Harthouse. 'Bounderby has the advantage in point of +weight; and if anything of a British nature is to come off between +us, it may be as well to be in training.' + +Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing himself negligently on a +sofa, ordered 'Some dinner at six - with a beefsteak in it,' and +got through the intervening time as well as he could. That was not +particularly well; for he remained in the greatest perplexity, and, +as the hours went on, and no kind of explanation offered itself, +his perplexity augmented at compound interest. + +However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature to do, +and entertained himself with the facetious idea of the training +more than once. 'It wouldn't be bad,' he yawned at one time, 'to +give the waiter five shillings, and throw him.' At another time it +occurred to him, 'Or a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone +might be hired by the hour.' But these jests did not tell +materially on the afternoon, or his suspense; and, sooth to say, +they both lagged fearfully. + +It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking about +in the pattern of the carpet, looking out of the window, listening +at the door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot +when any steps approached that room. But, after dinner, when the +day turned to twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and still +no communication was made to him, it began to be as he expressed +it, 'like the Holy Office and slow torture.' However, still true +to his conviction that indifference was the genuine high-breeding +(the only conviction he had), he seized this crisis as the +opportunity for ordering candles and a newspaper. + +He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this +newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at once mysteriously +and apologetically: + +'Beg your pardon, sir. You're wanted, sir, if you please.' + +A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the Police +said to the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the waiter in +return, with bristling indignation, what the Devil he meant by +'wanted'? + +'Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, wishes to see +you.' + +'Outside? Where?' + +'Outside this door, sir.' + +Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a block- +head duly qualified for that consignment, Mr. Harthouse hurried +into the gallery. A young woman whom he had never seen stood +there. Plainly dressed, very quiet, very pretty. As he conducted +her into the room and placed a chair for her, he observed, by the +light of the candles, that she was even prettier than he had at +first believed. Her face was innocent and youthful, and its +expression remarkably pleasant. She was not afraid of him, or in +any way disconcerted; she seemed to have her mind entirely +preoccupied with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted +that consideration for herself. + +'I speak to Mr. Harthouse?' she said, when they were alone. + +'To Mr. Harthouse.' He added in his mind, 'And you speak to him +with the most confiding eyes I ever saw, and the most earnest voice +(though so quiet) I ever heard.' + +'If I do not understand - and I do not, sir' - said Sissy, 'what +your honour as a gentleman binds you to, in other matters:' the +blood really rose in his face as she began in these words: 'I am +sure I may rely upon it to keep my visit secret, and to keep secret +what I am going to say. I will rely upon it, if you will tell me I +may so far trust - ' + +'You may, I assure you.' + +'I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see. In coming to you, +sir, I have no advice or encouragement beyond my own hope.' He +thought, 'But that is very strong,' as he followed the momentary +upward glance of her eyes. He thought besides, 'This is a very odd +beginning. I don't see where we are going.' + +'I think,' said Sissy, 'you have already guessed whom I left just +now!' + +'I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness during the last +four-and-twenty hours (which have appeared as many years),' he +returned, 'on a lady's account. The hopes I have been encouraged +to form that you come from that lady, do not deceive me, I trust.' + +'I left her within an hour.' + +'At - !' + +'At her father's.' + +Mr. Harthouse's face lengthened in spite of his coolness, and his +perplexity increased. 'Then I certainly,' he thought, 'do not see +where we are going.' + +'She hurried there last night. She arrived there in great +agitation, and was insensible all through the night. I live at her +father's, and was with her. You may be sure, sir, you will never +see her again as long as you live.' + +Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath; and, if ever man found himself in +the position of not knowing what to say, made the discovery beyond +all question that he was so circumstanced. The child-like +ingenuousness with which his visitor spoke, her modest +fearlessness, her truthfulness which put all artifice aside, her +entire forgetfulness of herself in her earnest quiet holding to the +object with which she had come; all this, together with her +reliance on his easily given promise - which in itself shamed him - +presented something in which he was so inexperienced, and against +which he knew any of his usual weapons would fall so powerless; +that not a word could he rally to his relief. + +At last he said: + +'So startling an announcement, so confidently made, and by such +lips, is really disconcerting in the last degree. May I be +permitted to inquire, if you are charged to convey that information +to me in those hopeless words, by the lady of whom we speak?' + +'I have no charge from her.' + +'The drowning man catches at the straw. With no disrespect for +your judgment, and with no doubt of your sincerity, excuse my +saying that I cling to the belief that there is yet hope that I am +not condemned to perpetual exile from that lady's presence.' + +'There is not the least hope. The first object of my coming here, +sir, is to assure you that you must believe that there is no more +hope of your ever speaking with her again, than there would be if +she had died when she came home last night.' + +'Must believe? But if I can't - or if I should, by infirmity of +nature, be obstinate - and won't - ' + +'It is still true. There is no hope.' + +James Harthouse looked at her with an incredulous smile upon his +lips; but her mind looked over and beyond him, and the smile was +quite thrown away. + +He bit his lip, and took a little time for consideration. + +'Well! If it should unhappily appear,' he said, 'after due pains +and duty on my part, that I am brought to a position so desolate as +this banishment, I shall not become the lady's persecutor. But you +said you had no commission from her?' + +'I have only the commission of my love for her, and her love for +me. I have no other trust, than that I have been with her since +she came home, and that she has given me her confidence. I have no +further trust, than that I know something of her character and her +marriage. O Mr. Harthouse, I think you had that trust too!' + +He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been - in +that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have +lived if they had not been whistled away - by the fervour of this +reproach. + +'I am not a moral sort of fellow,' he said, 'and I never make any +pretensions to the character of a moral sort of fellow. I am as +immoral as need be. At the same time, in bringing any distress +upon the lady who is the subject of the present conversation, or in +unfortunately compromising her in any way, or in committing myself +by any expression of sentiments towards her, not perfectly +reconcilable with - in fact with - the domestic hearth; or in +taking any advantage of her father's being a machine, or of her +brother's being a whelp, or of her husband's being a bear; I beg to +be allowed to assure you that I have had no particularly evil +intentions, but have glided on from one step to another with a +smoothness so perfectly diabolical, that I had not the slightest +idea the catalogue was half so long until I began to turn it over. +Whereas I find,' said Mr. James Harthouse, in conclusion, 'that it +is really in several volumes.' + +Though he said all this in his frivolous way, the way seemed, for +that once, a conscious polishing of but an ugly surface. He was +silent for a moment; and then proceeded with a more self-possessed +air, though with traces of vexation and disappointment that would +not be polished out. + +'After what has been just now represented to me, in a manner I find +it impossible to doubt - I know of hardly any other source from +which I could have accepted it so readily - I feel bound to say to +you, in whom the confidence you have mentioned has been reposed, +that I cannot refuse to contemplate the possibility (however +unexpected) of my seeing the lady no more. I am solely to blame +for the thing having come to this - and - and, I cannot say,' he +added, rather hard up for a general peroration, 'that I have any +sanguine expectation of ever becoming a moral sort of fellow, or +that I have any belief in any moral sort of fellow whatever.' + +Sissy's face sufficiently showed that her appeal to him was not +finished. + +'You spoke,' he resumed, as she raised her eyes to him again, 'of +your first object. I may assume that there is a second to be +mentioned?' + +'Yes.' + +'Will you oblige me by confiding it?' + +'Mr. Harthouse,' returned Sissy, with a blending of gentleness and +steadiness that quite defeated him, and with a simple confidence in +his being bound to do what she required, that held him at a +singular disadvantage, 'the only reparation that remains with you, +is to leave here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you +can mitigate in no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I +am quite sure that it is the only compensation you have left it in +your power to make. I do not say that it is much, or that it is +enough; but it is something, and it is necessary. Therefore, +though without any other authority than I have given you, and even +without the knowledge of any other person than yourself and myself, +I ask you to depart from this place to-night, under an obligation +never to return to it.' + +If she had asserted any influence over him beyond her plain faith +in the truth and right of what she said; if she had concealed the +least doubt or irresolution, or had harboured for the best purpose +any reserve or pretence; if she had shown, or felt, the lightest +trace of any sensitiveness to his ridicule or his astonishment, or +any remonstrance he might offer; he would have carried it against +her at this point. But he could as easily have changed a clear sky +by looking at it in surprise, as affect her. + +'But do you know,' he asked, quite at a loss, 'the extent of what +you ask? You probably are not aware that I am here on a public +kind of business, preposterous enough in itself, but which I have +gone in for, and sworn by, and am supposed to be devoted to in +quite a desperate manner? You probably are not aware of that, but +I assure you it's the fact.' + +It had no effect on Sissy, fact or no fact. + +'Besides which,' said Mr. Harthouse, taking a turn or two across +the room, dubiously, 'it's so alarmingly absurd. It would make a +man so ridiculous, after going in for these fellows, to back out in +such an incomprehensible way.' + +'I am quite sure,' repeated Sissy, 'that it is the only reparation +in your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I would not have come +here.' + +He glanced at her face, and walked about again. 'Upon my soul, I +don't know what to say. So immensely absurd!' + +It fell to his lot, now, to stipulate for secrecy. + +'If I were to do such a very ridiculous thing,' he said, stopping +again presently, and leaning against the chimney-piece, 'it could +only be in the most inviolable confidence.' + +'I will trust to you, sir,' returned Sissy, 'and you will trust to +me.' + +His leaning against the chimney-piece reminded him of the night +with the whelp. It was the self-same chimney-piece, and somehow he +felt as if he were the whelp to-night. He could make no way at +all. + +'I suppose a man never was placed in a more ridiculous position,' +he said, after looking down, and looking up, and laughing, and +frowning, and walking off, and walking back again. 'But I see no +way out of it. What will be, will be. This will be, I suppose. I +must take off myself, I imagine - in short, I engage to do it.' + +Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the result, but she was happy +in it, and her face beamed brightly. + +'You will permit me to say,' continued Mr. James Harthouse, 'that I +doubt if any other ambassador, or ambassadress, could have +addressed me with the same success. I must not only regard myself +as being in a very ridiculous position, but as being vanquished at +all points. Will you allow me the privilege of remembering my +enemy's name?' + +'My name?' said the ambassadress. + +'The only name I could possibly care to know, to-night.' + +'Sissy Jupe.' + +'Pardon my curiosity at parting. Related to the family?' + +'I am only a poor girl,' returned Sissy. 'I was separated from my +father - he was only a stroller - and taken pity on by Mr. +Gradgrind. I have lived in the house ever since.' + +She was gone. + +'It wanted this to complete the defeat,' said Mr. James Harthouse, +sinking, with a resigned air, on the sofa, after standing +transfixed a little while. 'The defeat may now be considered +perfectly accomplished. Only a poor girl - only a stroller - only +James Harthouse made nothing of - only James Harthouse a Great +Pyramid of failure.' + +The Great Pyramid put it into his head to go up the Nile. He took +a pen upon the instant, and wrote the following note (in +appropriate hieroglyphics) to his brother: + + +Dear Jack, - All up at Coketown. Bored out of the place, and going +in for camels. Affectionately, JEM, + + +He rang the bell. + +'Send my fellow here.' + +'Gone to bed, sir.' + +'Tell him to get up, and pack up.' + +He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. Bounderby, announcing his +retirement from that part of the country, and showing where he +would be found for the next fortnight. The other, similar in +effect, to Mr. Gradgrind. Almost as soon as the ink was dry upon +their superscriptions, he had left the tall chimneys of Coketown +behind, and was in a railway carriage, tearing and glaring over the +dark landscape. + +The moral sort of fellows might suppose that Mr. James Harthouse +derived some comfortable reflections afterwards, from this prompt +retreat, as one of his few actions that made any amends for +anything, and as a token to himself that he had escaped the climax +of a very bad business. But it was not so, at all. A secret sense +of having failed and been ridiculous - a dread of what other +fellows who went in for similar sorts of things, would say at his +expense if they knew it - so oppressed him, that what was about the +very best passage in his life was the one of all others he would +not have owned to on any account, and the only one that made him +ashamed of himself. + + + +CHAPTER III - VERY DECIDED + + + +THE indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her, her +voice reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by +continual sneezes that it seemed in danger of dismemberment, gave +chase to her patron until she found him in the metropolis; and +there, majestically sweeping in upon him at his hotel in St. +James's Street, exploded the combustibles with which she was +charged, and blew up. Having executed her mission with infinite +relish, this high-minded woman then fainted away on Mr. Bounderby's +coat-collar. + +Mr. Bounderby's first procedure was to shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and +leave her to progress as she might through various stages of +suffering on the floor. He next had recourse to the administration +of potent restoratives, such as screwing the patient's thumbs, +smiting her hands, abundantly watering her face, and inserting salt +in her mouth. When these attentions had recovered her (which they +speedily did), he hustled her into a fast train without offering +any other refreshment, and carried her back to Coketown more dead +than alive. + +Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting +spectacle on her arrival at her journey's end; but considered in +any other light, the amount of damage she had by that time +sustained was excessive, and impaired her claims to admiration. +Utterly heedless of the wear and tear of her clothes and +constitution, and adamant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. Bounderby +immediately crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to Stone +Lodge. + +'Now, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby, bursting into his father-in- +law's room late at night; 'here's a lady here - Mrs. Sparsit - you +know Mrs. Sparsit - who has something to say to you that will +strike you dumb.' + +'You have missed my letter!' exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by +the apparition. + +'Missed your letter, sir!' bawled Bounderby. 'The present time is +no time for letters. No man shall talk to Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown about letters, with his mind in the state it's in now.' + +'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of temperate +remonstrance, 'I speak of a very special letter I have written to +you, in reference to Louisa.' + +'Tom Gradgrind,' replied Bounderby, knocking the flat of his hand +several times with great vehemence on the table, 'I speak of a very +special messenger that has come to me, in reference to Louisa. +Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, stand forward!' + +That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, without +any voice and with painful gestures expressive of an inflamed +throat, became so aggravating and underwent so many facial +contortions, that Mr. Bounderby, unable to bear it, seized her by +the arm and shook her. + +'If you can't get it out, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'leave me to get +it out. This is not a time for a lady, however highly connected, +to be totally inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom +Gradgrind, Mrs. Sparsit latterly found herself, by accident, in a +situation to overhear a conversation out of doors between your +daughter and your precious gentleman-friend, Mr. James Harthouse.' + +'Indeed!' said Mr. Gradgrind. + +'Ah! Indeed!' cried Bounderby. 'And in that conversation - ' + +'It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, Bounderby. I know what +passed.' + +'You do? Perhaps,' said Bounderby, staring with all his might at +his so quiet and assuasive father-in-law, 'you know where your +daughter is at the present time!' + +'Undoubtedly. She is here.' + +'Here?' + +'My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these loud out- +breaks, on all accounts. Louisa is here. The moment she could +detach herself from that interview with the person of whom you +speak, and whom I deeply regret to have been the means of +introducing to you, Louisa hurried here, for protection. I myself +had not been at home many hours, when I received her - here, in +this room. She hurried by the train to town, she ran from town to +this house, through a raging storm, and presented herself before me +in a state of distraction. Of course, she has remained here ever +since. Let me entreat you, for your own sake and for hers, to be +more quiet.' + +Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in every +direction except Mrs. Sparsit's direction; and then, abruptly +turning upon the niece of Lady Scadgers, said to that wretched +woman: + +'Now, ma'am! We shall be happy to hear any little apology you may +think proper to offer, for going about the country at express pace, +with no other luggage than a Cock-and-a-Bull, ma'am!' + +'Sir,' whispered Mrs. Sparsit, 'my nerves are at present too much +shaken, and my health is at present too much impaired, in your +service, to admit of my doing more than taking refuge in tears.' +(Which she did.) + +'Well, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'without making any observation to +you that may not be made with propriety to a woman of good family, +what I have got to add to that, is that there is something else in +which it appears to me you may take refuge, namely, a coach. And +the coach in which we came here being at the door, you'll allow me +to hand you down to it, and pack you home to the Bank: where the +best course for you to pursue, will be to put your feet into the +hottest water you can bear, and take a glass of scalding rum and +butter after you get into bed.' With these words, Mr. Bounderby +extended his right hand to the weeping lady, and escorted her to +the conveyance in question, shedding many plaintive sneezes by the +way. He soon returned alone. + +'Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted +to speak to me,' he resumed, 'here I am. But, I am not in a very +agreeable state, I tell you plainly: not relishing this business, +even as it is, and not considering that I am at any time as +dutifully and submissively treated by your daughter, as Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown ought to be treated by his wife. You have +your opinion, I dare say; and I have mine, I know. If you mean to +say anything to me to-night, that goes against this candid remark, +you had better let it alone.' + +Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. +Bounderby took particular pains to harden himself at all points. +It was his amiable nature. + +'My dear Bounderby,' Mr. Gradgrind began in reply. + +'Now, you'll excuse me,' said Bounderby, 'but I don't want to be +too dear. That, to start with. When I begin to be dear to a man, +I generally find that his intention is to come over me. I am not +speaking to you politely; but, as you are aware, I am not polite. +If you like politeness, you know where to get it. You have your +gentleman-friends, you know, and they'll serve you with as much of +the article as you want. I don't keep it myself.' + +'Bounderby,' urged Mr. Gradgrind, 'we are all liable to mistakes - +' + +'I thought you couldn't make 'em,' interrupted Bounderby. + +'Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable to mistakes +and I should feel sensible of your delicacy, and grateful for it, +if you would spare me these references to Harthouse. I shall not +associate him in our conversation with your intimacy and +encouragement; pray do not persist in connecting him with mine.' + +'I never mentioned his name!' said Bounderby. + +'Well, well!' returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a +submissive, air. And he sat for a little while pondering. +'Bounderby, I see reason to doubt whether we have ever quite +understood Louisa.' + +'Who do you mean by We?' + +'Let me say I, then,' he returned, in answer to the coarsely +blurted question; 'I doubt whether I have understood Louisa. I +doubt whether I have been quite right in the manner of her +education.' + +'There you hit it,' returned Bounderby. 'There I agree with you. +You have found it out at last, have you? Education! I'll tell you +what education is - To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and +put upon the shortest allowance of everything except blows. That's +what I call education.' + +'I think your good sense will perceive,' Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated +in all humility, 'that whatever the merits of such a system may be, +it would be difficult of general application to girls.' + +'I don't see it at all, sir,' returned the obstinate Bounderby. + +'Well,' sighed Mr. Gradgrind, 'we will not enter into the question. +I assure you I have no desire to be controversial. I seek to +repair what is amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist +me in a good spirit, Bounderby, for I have been very much +distressed.' + +'I don't understand you, yet,' said Bounderby, with determined +obstinacy, 'and therefore I won't make any promises.' + +'In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,' Mr. Gradgrind +proceeded, in the same depressed and propitiatory manner, 'I appear +to myself to have become better informed as to Louisa's character, +than in previous years. The enlightenment has been painfully +forced upon me, and the discovery is not mine. I think there are - +Bounderby, you will be surprised to hear me say this - I think +there are qualities in Louisa, which - which have been harshly +neglected, and - and a little perverted. And - and I would suggest +to you, that - that if you would kindly meet me in a timely +endeavour to leave her to her better nature for a while - and to +encourage it to develop itself by tenderness and consideration - it +- it would be the better for the happiness of all of us. Louisa,' +said Mr. Gradgrind, shading his face with his hand, 'has always +been my favourite child.' + +The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an extent on +hearing these words, that he seemed to be, and probably was, on the +brink of a fit. With his very ears a bright purple shot with +crimson, he pent up his indignation, however, and said: + +'You'd like to keep her here for a time?' + +'I - I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, that you +should allow Louisa to remain here on a visit, and be attended by +Sissy (I mean of course Cecilia Jupe), who understands her, and in +whom she trusts.' + +'I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby, standing +up with his hands in his pockets, 'that you are of opinion that +there's what people call some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby +and myself.' + +'I fear there is at present a general incompatibility between +Louisa, and - and - and almost all the relations in which I have +placed her,' was her father's sorrowful reply. + +'Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby the flushed, +confronting him with his legs wide apart, his hands deeper in his +pockets, and his hair like a hayfield wherein his windy anger was +boisterous. 'You have said your say; I am going to say mine. I am +a Coketown man. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. I know the +bricks of this town, and I know the works of this town, and I know +the chimneys of this town, and I know the smoke of this town, and I +know the Hands of this town. I know 'em all pretty well. They're +real. When a man tells me anything about imaginative qualities, I +always tell that man, whoever he is, that I know what he means. He +means turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, and that he wants +to be set up with a coach and six. That's what your daughter +wants. Since you are of opinion that she ought to have what she +wants, I recommend you to provide it for her. Because, Tom +Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.' + +'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'I hoped, after my entreaty, you +would have taken a different tone.' + +'Just wait a bit,' retorted Bounderby; 'you have said your say, I +believe. I heard you out; hear me out, if you please. Don't make +yourself a spectacle of unfairness as well as inconsistency, +because, although I am sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his +present position, I should be doubly sorry to see him brought so +low as that. Now, there's an incompatibility of some sort or +another, I am given to understand by you, between your daughter and +me. I'll give you to understand, in reply to that, that there +unquestionably is an incompatibility of the first magnitude - to be +summed up in this - that your daughter don't properly know her +husband's merits, and is not impressed with such a sense as would +become her, by George! of the honour of his alliance. That's plain +speaking, I hope.' + +'Bounderby,' urged Mr. Gradgrind, 'this is unreasonable.' + +'Is it?' said Bounderby. 'I am glad to hear you say so. Because +when Tom Gradgrind, with his new lights, tells me that what I say +is unreasonable, I am convinced at once it must be devilish +sensible. With your permission I am going on. You know my origin; +and you know that for a good many years of my life I didn't want a +shoeing-horn, in consequence of not having a shoe. Yet you may +believe or not, as you think proper, that there are ladies - born +ladies - belonging to families - Families! - who next to worship +the ground I walk on.' + +He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law's head. + +'Whereas your daughter,' proceeded Bounderby, 'is far from being a +born lady. That you know, yourself. Not that I care a pinch of +candle-snuff about such things, for you are very well aware I +don't; but that such is the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can't +change it. Why do I say this?' + +'Not, I fear,' observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, 'to spare +me.' + +'Hear me out,' said Bounderby, 'and refrain from cutting in till +your turn comes round. I say this, because highly connected +females have been astonished to see the way in which your daughter +has conducted herself, and to witness her insensibility. They have +wondered how I have suffered it. And I wonder myself now, and I +won't suffer it.' + +'Bounderby,' returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, 'the less we say to- +night the better, I think.' + +'On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the +better, I think. That is,' the consideration checked him, 'till I +have said all I mean to say, and then I don't care how soon we +stop. I come to a question that may shorten the business. What do +you mean by the proposal you made just now?' + +'What do I mean, Bounderby?' + +'By your visiting proposition,' said Bounderby, with an inflexible +jerk of the hayfield. + +'I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly +manner, for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, +which may tend to a gradual alteration for the better in many +respects.' + +'To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?' said +Bounderby. + +'If you put it in those terms.' + +'What made you think of this?' said Bounderby. + +'I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood. Is it +asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid +in trying to set her right? You have accepted a great charge of +her; for better for worse, for - ' + +Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own +words to Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with an +angry start. + +'Come!' said he, 'I don't want to be told about that. I know what +I took her for, as well as you do. Never you mind what I took her +for; that's my look out.' + +'I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be +more or less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and that some +yielding on your part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may +not only be an act of true kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred +towards Louisa.' + +'I think differently,' blustered Bounderby. 'I am going to finish +this business according to my own opinions. Now, I don't want to +make a quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the +truth, I don't think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel +on such a subject. As to your gentleman-friend, he may take +himself off, wherever he likes best. If he falls in my way, I +shall tell him my mind; if he don't fall in my way, I shan't, for +it won't be worth my while to do it. As to your daughter, whom I +made Loo Bounderby, and might have done better by leaving Loo +Gradgrind, if she don't come home to-morrow, by twelve o'clock at +noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I shall +send her wearing apparel and so forth over here, and you'll take +charge of her for the future. What I shall say to people in +general, of the incompatibility that led to my so laying down the +law, will be this. I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing- +up; she's the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing- +up; and the two horses wouldn't pull together. I am pretty well +known to be rather an uncommon man, I believe; and most people will +understand fast enough that it must be a woman rather out of the +common, also, who, in the long run, would come up to my mark.' + +'Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby,' urged +Mr. Gradgrind, 'before you commit yourself to such a decision.' + +'I always come to a decision,' said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: +'and whatever I do, I do at once. I should be surprised at Tom +Gradgrind's addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown, knowing what he knows of him, if I could be surprised by +anything Tom Gradgrind did, after his making himself a party to +sentimental humbug. I have given you my decision, and I have got +no more to say. Good night!' + +So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed. At five +minutes past twelve o'clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby's +property to be carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind's; +advertised his country retreat for sale by private contract; and +resumed a bachelor life. + + + +CHAPTER IV - LOST + + + +THE robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not +cease to occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of +that establishment now. In boastful proof of his promptitude and +activity, as a remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a +commercial wonder more admirable than Venus, who had risen out of +the mud instead of the sea, he liked to show how little his +domestic affairs abated his business ardour. Consequently, in the +first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even advanced upon +his usual display of bustle, and every day made such a rout in +renewing his investigations into the robbery, that the officers who +had it in hand almost wished it had never been committed. + +They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although they had been +so quiet since the first outbreak of the matter, that most people +really did suppose it to have been abandoned as hopeless, nothing +new occurred. No implicated man or woman took untimely courage, or +made a self-betraying step. More remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool +could not be heard of, and the mysterious old woman remained a +mystery. + +Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs of +stirring beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby's investigations +was, that he resolved to hazard a bold burst. He drew up a +placard, offering Twenty Pounds reward for the apprehension of +Stephen Blackpool, suspected of complicity in the robbery of +Coketown Bank on such a night; he described the said Stephen +Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated height, and manner, as +minutely as he could; he recited how he had left the town, and in +what direction he had been last seen going; he had the whole +printed in great black letters on a staring broadsheet; and he +caused the walls to be posted with it in the dead of night, so that +it should strike upon the sight of the whole population at one +blow. + +The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that morning to +disperse the groups of workers who stood in the tardy daybreak, +collected round the placards, devouring them with eager eyes. Not +the least eager of the eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who +could not read. These people, as they listened to the friendly +voice that read aloud - there was always some such ready to help +them - stared at the characters which meant so much with a vague +awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any aspect +of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and +full of evil. Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the +matter of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, +and whirling wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the Hands +cleared out again into the streets, there were still as many +readers as before. + +Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that +night; and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the printer, +and had brought it in his pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow- +countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow- +brothers and fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellowmen, what +a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called 'that +damning document,' and held it up to the gaze, and for the +execration of the working-man community! 'Oh, my fellow-men, +behold of what a traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are +enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and of Union, is +appropriately capable! Oh, my prostrate friends, with the galling +yoke of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism +treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon +which right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on +your bellies all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the +garden - oh, my brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters +too, what do you say, now, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight +stoop in his shoulders and about five foot seven in height, as set +forth in this degrading and disgusting document, this blighting +bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable advertisement; and +with what majesty of denouncement will you crush the viper, who +would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like race that +happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, my compatriots, happily +cast him out and sent him forth! For you remember how he stood +here before you on this platform; you remember how, face to face +and foot to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; +you remember how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of +straws, until, with not an inch of ground to which to cling, I +hurled him out from amongst us: an object for the undying finger +of scorn to point at, and for the avenging fire of every free and +thinking mind to scorch and scar! And now, my friends - my +labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma - my +friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose +scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, +my friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to +himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands +before us in all his native deformity, a What? A thief! A +plunderer! A proscribed fugitive, with a price upon his head; a +fester and a wound upon the noble character of the Coketown +operative! Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred bond, to +which your children and your children's children yet unborn have +set their infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the part of +the United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever +zealous for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That +Stephen Blackpool, weaver, referred to in this placard, having been +already solemnly disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the +same are free from the shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class +be reproached with his dishonest actions!' + +Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort. +A few stern voices called out 'No!' and a score or two hailed, with +assenting cries of 'Hear, hear!' the caution from one man, +'Slackbridge, y'or over hetter in't; y'or a goen too fast!' But +these were pigmies against an army; the general assemblage +subscribed to the gospel according to Slackbridge, and gave three +cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively panting at them. + +These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to +their homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some +minutes before, returned. + +'Who is it?' asked Louisa. + +'It is Mr. Bounderby,' said Sissy, timid of the name, 'and your +brother Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says her name is Rachael, +and that you know her.' + +'What do they want, Sissy dear?' + +'They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, and seems angry.' + +'Father,' said Louisa, for he was present, 'I cannot refuse to see +them, for a reason that will explain itself. Shall they come in +here?' + +As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring them. +She reappeared with them directly. Tom was last; and remained +standing in the obscurest part of the room, near the door. + +'Mrs. Bounderby,' said her husband, entering with a cool nod, 'I +don't disturb you, I hope. This is an unseasonable hour, but here +is a young woman who has been making statements which render my +visit necessary. Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses +for some obstinate reason or other to say anything at all about +those statements, good or bad, I am obliged to confront her with +your daughter.' + +'You have seen me once before, young lady,' said Rachael, standing +in front of Louisa. + +Tom coughed. + +'You have seen me, young lady,' repeated Rachael, as she did not +answer, 'once before.' + +Tom coughed again. + +'I have.' + +Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, +'Will you make it known, young lady, where, and who was there?' + +'I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on the night +of his discharge from his work, and I saw you there. He was there +too; and an old woman who did not speak, and whom I could scarcely +see, stood in a dark corner. My brother was with me.' + +'Why couldn't you say so, young Tom?' demanded Bounderby. + +'I promised my sister I wouldn't.' Which Louisa hastily confirmed. +'And besides,' said the whelp bitterly, 'she tells her own story so +precious well - and so full - that what business had I to take it +out of her mouth!' + +'Say, young lady, if you please,' pursued Rachael, 'why, in an evil +hour, you ever came to Stephen's that night.' + +'I felt compassion for him,' said Louisa, her colour deepening, +'and I wished to know what he was going to do, and wished to offer +him assistance.' + +'Thank you, ma'am,' said Bounderby. 'Much flattered and obliged.' + +'Did you offer him,' asked Rachael, 'a bank-note?' + +'Yes; but he refused it, and would only take two pounds in gold.' + +Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again. + +'Oh, certainly!' said Bounderby. 'If you put the question whether +your ridiculous and improbable account was true or not, I am bound +to say it's confirmed.' + +'Young lady,' said Rachael, 'Stephen Blackpool is now named as a +thief in public print all over this town, and where else! There +have been a meeting to-night where he have been spoken of in the +same shameful way. Stephen! The honestest lad, the truest lad, +the best!' Her indignation failed her, and she broke off sobbing. + +'I am very, very sorry,' said Louisa. + +'Oh, young lady, young lady,' returned Rachael, 'I hope you may be, +but I don't know! I can't say what you may ha' done! The like of +you don't know us, don't care for us, don't belong to us. I am not +sure why you may ha' come that night. I can't tell but what you +may ha' come wi' some aim of your own, not mindin to what trouble +you brought such as the poor lad. I said then, Bless you for +coming; and I said it of my heart, you seemed to take so pitifully +to him; but I don't know now, I don't know!' + +Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so +faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted. + +'And when I think,' said Rachael through her sobs, 'that the poor +lad was so grateful, thinkin you so good to him - when I mind that +he put his hand over his hard-worken face to hide the tears that +you brought up there - Oh, I hope you may be sorry, and ha' no bad +cause to be it; but I don't know, I don't know!' + +'You're a pretty article,' growled the whelp, moving uneasily in +his dark corner, 'to come here with these precious imputations! +You ought to be bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself, +and you would be by rights.' + +She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only sound +that was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke. + +'Come!' said he, 'you know what you have engaged to do. You had +better give your mind to that; not this.' + +''Deed, I am loath,' returned Rachael, drying her eyes, 'that any +here should see me like this; but I won't be seen so again. Young +lady, when I had read what's put in print of Stephen - and what has +just as much truth in it as if it had been put in print of you - I +went straight to the Bank to say I knew where Stephen was, and to +give a sure and certain promise that he should be here in two days. +I couldn't meet wi' Mr. Bounderby then, and your brother sent me +away, and I tried to find you, but you was not to be found, and I +went back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill to-night, I +hastened to hear what was said of Stephen - for I know wi' pride he +will come back to shame it! - and then I went again to seek Mr. +Bounderby, and I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and +he believed no word I said, and brought me here.' + +'So far, that's true enough,' assented Mr. Bounderby, with his +hands in his pockets and his hat on. 'But I have known you people +before to-day, you'll observe, and I know you never die for want of +talking. Now, I recommend you not so much to mind talking just +now, as doing. You have undertaken to do something; all I remark +upon that at present is, do it!' + +'I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this +afternoon, as I have written to him once before sin' he went away,' +said Rachael; 'and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.' + +'Then, I'll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps,' +retorted Mr. Bounderby, 'that you yourself have been looked after +now and then, not being considered quite free from suspicion in +this business, on account of most people being judged according to +the company they keep. The post-office hasn't been forgotten +either. What I'll tell you is, that no letter to Stephen Blackpool +has ever got into it. Therefore, what has become of yours, I leave +you to guess. Perhaps you're mistaken, and never wrote any.' + +'He hadn't been gone from here, young lady,' said Rachael, turning +appealingly to Louisa, 'as much as a week, when he sent me the only +letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work +in another name.' + +'Oh, by George!' cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle, +'he changes his name, does he! That's rather unlucky, too, for +such an immaculate chap. It's considered a little suspicious in +Courts of Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many +names.' + +'What,' said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, 'what, +young lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do! The +masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, +he only wantin to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. +Can a man have no soul of his own, no mind of his own? Must he go +wrong all through wi' this side, or must he go wrong all through +wi' that, or else be hunted like a hare?' + +'Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,' returned Louisa; 'and I +hope that he will clear himself.' + +'You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!' + +'All the surer, I suppose,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'for your refusing +to tell where he is? Eh?' + +'He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi' the unmerited +reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own +accord to clear himself, and put all those that have injured his +good character, and he not here for its defence, to shame. I have +told him what has been done against him,' said Rachael, throwing +off all distrust as a rock throws of the sea, 'and he will be here, +at furthest, in two days.' + +'Notwithstanding which,' added Mr. Bounderby, 'if he can be laid +hold of any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of +clearing himself. As to you, I have nothing against you; what you +came and told me turns out to be true, and I have given you the +means of proving it to be true, and there's an end of it. I wish +you good night all! I must be off to look a little further into +this.' + +Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with +him, kept close to him, and went away with him. The only parting +salutation of which he delivered himself was a sulky 'Good night, +father!' With a brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left +the house. + +Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been +sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said: + +'Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me +better.' + +'It goes against me,' Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, 'to +mistrust any one; but when I am so mistrusted - when we all are - I +cannot keep such things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon +for having done you an injury. I don't think what I said now. Yet +I might come to think it again, wi' the poor lad so wronged.' + +'Did you tell him in your letter,' inquired Sissy, 'that suspicion +seemed to have fallen upon him, because he had been seen about the +Bank at night? He would then know what he would have to explain on +coming back, and would be ready.' + +'Yes, dear,' she returned; 'but I can't guess what can have ever +taken him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his +way. His way was the same as mine, and not near it.' + +Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and +whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there were +news of him. + +'I doubt,' said Rachael, 'if he can be here till next day.' + +'Then I will come next night too,' said Sissy. + +When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up +his head, and said to his daughter: + +'Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do +you believe him to be implicated?' + +'I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. +I do not believe it now.' + +'That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from +knowing him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they +so honest?' + +'Very honest.' + +'And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,' said Mr. +Gradgrind, musing, 'does the real culprit know of these +accusations? Where is he? Who is he?' + +His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned +upon his hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of +fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his +side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy's at the moment. Sissy +flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip. + +Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen +was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she +came home with the same account, and added that he had not been +heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the +moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his name, +or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever pursued the subject of the +robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it. + +The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and +Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the +fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her +despatch to have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her +letter from him with his address, at a working colony, one of many, +not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to +that place, and the whole town looked for Stephen to be brought in +next day. + +During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby +like his shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly +excited, horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke +in a hard rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt +up. At the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp +was at the station; offering to wager that he had made off before +the arrival of those who were sent in quest of him, and that he +would not appear. + +The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael's +letter had gone, Rachael's letter had been delivered. Stephen +Blackpool had decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of +him. The only doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written +in good faith, believing that he really would come back, or warning +him to fly. On this point opinion was divided. + +Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp +plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant. 'Was the +suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was +the man, and why did he not come back?' + +Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of +night the echoes of his own words, which had rolled Heaven knows +how far away in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him +until morning. + + + +CHAPTER V - FOUND + + + +DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. +Where was the man, and why did he not come back? + +Every night, Sissy went to Rachael's lodging, and sat with her in +her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must +toil, whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were +indifferent who was lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the +melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of +their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and +night again. The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool's +disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as +monotonous a wonder as any piece of machinery in Coketown. + +'I misdoubt,' said Rachael, 'if there is as many as twenty left in +all this place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.' + +She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by +the lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was +already dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat +at the window where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter +light to shine on their sorrowful talk. + +'If it hadn't been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you +to speak to,' pursued Rachael, 'times are, when I think my mind +would not have kept right. But I get hope and strength through +you; and you believe that though appearances may rise against him, +he will be proved clear?' + +'I do believe so,' returned Sissy, 'with my whole heart. I feel so +certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all +discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt +of him than if I had known him through as many years of trial as +you have.' + +'And I, my dear,' said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, 'have +known him through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so +faithful to everything honest and good, that if he was never to be +heard of more, and I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could +say with my last breath, God knows my heart. I have never once +left trusting Stephen Blackpool!' + +'We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed +from suspicion, sooner or later.' + +'The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,' said +Rachael, 'and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there, +purposely to comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi' me +when I am not yet free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved +I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words to the +young lady. And yet I - ' + +'You don't mistrust her now, Rachael?' + +'Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can't at +all times keep out of my mind - ' + +Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that +Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention. + +'I can't at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some +one. I can't think who 'tis, I can't think how or why it may be +done, but I mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way. +I mistrust that by his coming back of his own accord, and showing +himself innocent before them all, some one would be confounded, who +- to prevent that - has stopped him, and put him out of the way.' + +'That is a dreadful thought,' said Sissy, turning pale. + +'It is a dreadful thought to think he may be murdered.' + +Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet. + +'When it makes its way into my mind, dear,' said Rachael, 'and it +will come sometimes, though I do all I can to keep it out, wi' +counting on to high numbers as I work, and saying over and over +again pieces that I knew when I were a child - I fall into such a +wild, hot hurry, that, however tired I am, I want to walk fast, +miles and miles. I must get the better of this before bed-time. +I'll walk home wi' you.' + +'He might fall ill upon the journey back,' said Sissy, faintly +offering a worn-out scrap of hope; 'and in such a case, there are +many places on the road where he might stop.' + +'But he is in none of them. He has been sought for in all, and +he's not there.' + +'True,' was Sissy's reluctant admission. + +'He'd walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and +couldn't walk, I sent him, in the letter he got, the money to ride, +lest he should have none of his own to spare.' + +'Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, Rachael. +Come into the air!' + +Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael's shawl upon her shining black +hair in the usual manner of her wearing it, and they went out. The +night being fine, little knots of Hands were here and there +lingering at street corners; but it was supper-time with the +greater part of them, and there were but few people in the streets. + +'You're not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand is cooler.' + +'I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little +fresh. 'Times when I can't, I turn weak and confused.' + +'But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at +any time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no news +comes to-morrow, let us walk in the country on Sunday morning, and +strengthen you for another week. Will you go?' + +'Yes, dear.' + +They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby's house +stood. The way to Sissy's destination led them past the door, and +they were going straight towards it. Some train had newly arrived +in Coketown, which had put a number of vehicles in motion, and +scattered a considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches +were rattling before them and behind them as they approached Mr. +Bounderby's, and one of the latter drew up with such briskness as +they were in the act of passing the house, that they looked round +involuntarily. The bright gaslight over Mr. Bounderby's steps +showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an ecstasy of excitement, +struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing them at the same +moment, called to them to stop. + +'It's a coincidence,' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released +by the coachman. 'It's a Providence! Come out, ma'am!' then said +Mrs. Sparsit, to some one inside, 'come out, or we'll have you +dragged out!' + +Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom +Mrs. Sparsit incontinently collared. + +'Leave her alone, everybody!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great +energy. 'Let nobody touch her. She belongs to me. Come in, +ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit, reversing her former word of +command. 'Come in, ma'am, or we'll have you dragged in!' + +The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an +ancient woman by the throat, and hauling her into a dwelling-house, +would have been under any circumstances, sufficient temptation to +all true English stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a +way into that dwelling-house and see the matter out. But when the +phenomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time +associated all over the town with the Bank robbery, it would have +lured the stragglers in, with an irresistible attraction, though +the roof had been expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly, +the chance witnesses on the ground, consisting of the busiest of +the neighbours to the number of some five-and-twenty, closed in +after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in after Mrs. Sparsit and +her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption into Mr. +Bounderby's dining-room, where the people behind lost not a +moment's time in mounting on the chairs, to get the better of the +people in front. + +'Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!' cried Mrs. Sparsit. 'Rachael, young +woman; you know who this is?' + +'It's Mrs. Pegler,' said Rachael. + +'I should think it is!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. 'Fetch Mr. +Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!' Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling +herself up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of +entreaty. 'Don't tell me,' said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud. 'I have told +you twenty times, coming along, that I will not leave you till I +have handed you over to him myself.' + +Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the +whelp, with whom he had been holding conference up-stairs. Mr. +Bounderby looked more astonished than hospitable, at sight of this +uninvited party in his dining-room. + +'Why, what's the matter now!' said he. 'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am?' + +'Sir,' explained that worthy woman, 'I trust it is my good fortune +to produce a person you have much desired to find. Stimulated by +my wish to relieve your mind, sir, and connecting together such +imperfect clues to the part of the country in which that person +might be supposed to reside, as have been afforded by the young +woman, Rachael, fortunately now present to identify, I have had the +happiness to succeed, and to bring that person with me - I need not +say most unwillingly on her part. It has not been, sir, without +some trouble that I have effected this; but trouble in your service +is to me a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold a real +gratification.' + +Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby's visage exhibited an +extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions +of discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view. + +'Why, what do you mean by this?' was his highly unexpected demand, +in great warmth. 'I ask you, what do you mean by this, Mrs. +Sparsit, ma'am?' + +'Sir!' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly. + +'Why don't you mind your own business, ma'am?' roared Bounderby. +'How dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family +affairs?' + +This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit. +She sat down stiffly in a chair, as if she were frozen; and with a +fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one +another, as if they were frozen too. + +'My dear Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. 'My darling boy! +I am not to blame. It's not my fault, Josiah. I told this lady +over and over again, that I knew she was doing what would not be +agreeable to you, but she would do it.' + +'What did you let her bring you for? Couldn't you knock her cap +off, or her tooth out, or scratch her, or do something or other to +her?' asked Bounderby. + +'My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be +brought by constables, and it was better to come quietly than make +that stir in such a' - Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly +round the walls - 'such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it +is not my fault! My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always lived +quiet, and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the +condition once. I have never said I was your mother. I have +admired you at a distance; and if I have come to town sometimes, +with long times between, to take a proud peep at you, I have done +it unbeknown, my love, and gone away again.' + +Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient +mortification up and down at the side of the long dining-table, +while the spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs. +Pegler's appeal, and at each succeeding syllable became more and +more round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking up and down when Mrs. +Pegler had done, Mr. Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady: + +'I am surprised, madam,' he observed with severity, 'that in your +old age you have the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your son, +after your unnatural and inhuman treatment of him.' + +'Me unnatural!' cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. 'Me inhuman! To my +dear boy?' + +'Dear!' repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 'Yes; dear in his self-made +prosperity, madam, I dare say. Not very dear, however, when you +deserted him in his infancy, and left him to the brutality of a +drunken grandmother.' + +'I deserted my Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands. +'Now, Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and for +your scandal against the memory of my poor mother, who died in my +arms before Josiah was born. May you repent of it, sir, and live +to know better!' + +She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by +the possibility which dawned upon him, said in a gentler tone: + +'Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to - to be +brought up in the gutter?' + +'Josiah in the gutter!' exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. 'No such a thing, +sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give +you to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of +parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought +it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and +cipher beautiful, and I've his books at home to show it! Aye, have +I!' said Mrs. Pegler, with indignant pride. 'And my dear boy +knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved +father died, when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could +pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to +do it, to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a +steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and +well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving. And +I'll give you to know, sir - for this my dear boy won't - that +though his mother kept but a little village shop, he never forgot +her, but pensioned me on thirty pound a year - more than I want, +for I put by out of it - only making the condition that I was to +keep down in my own part, and make no boasts about him, and not +trouble him. And I never have, except with looking at him once a +year, when he has never knowed it. And it's right,' said poor old +Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate championship, 'that I should keep down +in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do +a many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep +my pride in my Josiah to myself, and I can love for love's own +sake! And I am ashamed of you, sir,' said Mrs. Pegler, lastly, +'for your slanders and suspicions. And I never stood here before, +nor never wanted to stand here when my dear son said no. And I +shouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for being brought here. +And for shame upon you, Oh, for shame, to accuse me of being a bad +mother to my son, with my son standing here to tell you so +different!' + +The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur +of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself +innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr. +Bounderby, who had never ceased walking up and down, and had every +moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and redder, +stopped short. + +'I don't exactly know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'how I come to be +favoured with the attendance of the present company, but I don't +inquire. When they're quite satisfied, perhaps they'll be so good +as to disperse; whether they're satisfied or not, perhaps they'll +be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound to deliver a lecture on +my family affairs, I have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a +going to do it. Therefore those who expect any explanation +whatever upon that branch of the subject, will be disappointed - +particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he can't know it too soon. In +reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a mistake made, +concerning my mother. If there hadn't been over-officiousness it +wouldn't have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all +times, whether or no. Good evening!' + +Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the +door open for the company to depart, there was a blustering +sheepishness upon him, at once extremely crestfallen and +superlatively absurd. Detected as the Bully of humility, who had +built his windy reputation upon lies, and in his boastfulness had +put the honest truth as far away from him as if he had advanced the +mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to a pedigree, +he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the people filing off at the +door he held, who he knew would carry what had passed to the whole +town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a +Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even +that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of +exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight +as that remarkable man and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown. + +Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son's +for that night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and +there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very +far, and spoke with much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he +thought this signal failure of the suspicions against Mrs. Pegler +was likely to work well. + +As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late +occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that +as long as Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge, +he was so far safe. He never visited his sister, and had only seen +her once since she went home: that is to say on the night when he +still stuck close to Bounderby, as already related. + +There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister's mind, +to which she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless +and ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark +possibility had presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this +very day, to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who would be +confounded by Stephen's return, having put him out of the way. +Louisa had never spoken of harbouring any suspicion of her brother +in connexion with the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence +on the subject, save in that one interchange of looks when the +unconscious father rested his gray head on his hand; but it was +understood between them, and they both knew it. This other fear +was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a ghostly +shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far less +of its being near the other. + +And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve +with him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, let him show +himself. Why didn't he? + +Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool. +Where was the man, and why did he not come back? + + + +CHAPTER VI - THE STARLIGHT + + + +THE Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when +early in the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country. + +As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the +neighbourhood's too - after the manner of those pious persons who +do penance for their own sins by putting other people into +sackcloth - it was customary for those who now and then thirsted +for a draught of pure air, which is not absolutely the most wicked +among the vanities of life, to get a few miles away by the +railroad, and then begin their walk, or their lounge in the fields. +Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the smoke by the usual +means, and were put down at a station about midway between the town +and Mr. Bounderby's retreat. + +Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of +coal, it was green elsewhere, and there were trees to see, and +there were larks singing (though it was Sunday), and there were +pleasant scents in the air, and all was over-arched by a bright +blue sky. In the distance one way, Coketown showed as a black +mist; in another distance hills began to rise; in a third, there +was a faint change in the light of the horizon where it shone upon +the far-off sea. Under their feet, the grass was fresh; beautiful +shadows of branches flickered upon it, and speckled it; hedgerows +were luxuriant; everything was at peace. Engines at pits' mouths, +and lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily labour +into the ground, were alike quiet; wheels had ceased for a short +space to turn; and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve +without the shocks and noises of another time. + +They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes, +sometimes getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it +dropped at a touch of the foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of +bricks and beams overgrown with grass, marking the site of deserted +works. They followed paths and tracks, however slight. Mounds +where the grass was rank and high, and where brambles, dock-weed, +and such-like vegetation, were confusedly heaped together, they +always avoided; for dismal stories were told in that country of the +old pits hidden beneath such indications. + +The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They had seen no one, +near or distant, for a long time; and the solitude remained +unbroken. 'It is so still here, Rachael, and the way is so +untrodden, that I think we must be the first who have been here all +the summer.' + +As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another of those +rotten fragments of fence upon the ground. She got up to look at +it. 'And yet I don't know. This has not been broken very long. +The wood is quite fresh where it gave way. Here are footsteps too. +- O Rachael!' + +She ran back, and caught her round the neck. Rachael had already +started up. + +'What is the matter?' + +'I don't know. There is a hat lying in the grass.' They went +forward together. Rachael took it up, shaking from head to foot. +She broke into a passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen +Blackpool was written in his own hand on the inside. + +'O the poor lad, the poor lad! He has been made away with. He is +lying murdered here!' + +'Is there - has the hat any blood upon it?' Sissy faltered. + +They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found no +mark of violence, inside or out. It had been lying there some +days, for rain and dew had stained it, and the mark of its shape +was on the grass where it had fallen. They looked fearfully about +them, without moving, but could see nothing more. 'Rachael,' Sissy +whispered, 'I will go on a little by myself.' + +She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping forward, +when Rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that resounded +over the wide landscape. Before them, at their very feet, was the +brink of a black ragged chasm hidden by the thick grass. They +sprang back, and fell upon their knees, each hiding her face upon +the other's neck. + +'O, my good Lord! He's down there! Down there!' At first this, +and her terrific screams, were all that could be got from Rachael, +by any tears, by any prayers, by any representations, by any means. +It was impossible to hush her; and it was deadly necessary to hold +her, or she would have flung herself down the shaft. + +'Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of Heaven, not +these dreadful cries! Think of Stephen, think of Stephen, think of +Stephen!' + +By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all the +agony of such a moment, Sissy at last brought her to be silent, and +to look at her with a tearless face of stone. + +'Rachael, Stephen may be living. You wouldn't leave him lying +maimed at the bottom of this dreadful place, a moment, if you could +bring help to him?' + +'No, no, no!' + +'Don't stir from here, for his sake! Let me go and listen.' + +She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on her +hands and knees, and called to him as loud as she could call. She +listened, but no sound replied. She called again and listened; +still no answering sound. She did this, twenty, thirty times. She +took a little clod of earth from the broken ground where he had +stumbled, and threw it in. She could not hear it fall. + +The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes +ago, almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she rose and +looked all round her, seeing no help. 'Rachael, we must lose not a +moment. We must go in different directions, seeking aid. You +shall go by the way we have come, and I will go forward by the +path. Tell any one you see, and every one what has happened. +Think of Stephen, think of Stephen!' + +She knew by Rachael's face that she might trust her now. And after +standing for a moment to see her running, wringing her hands as she +ran, she turned and went upon her own search; she stopped at the +hedge to tie her shawl there as a guide to the place, then threw +her bonnet aside, and ran as she had never run before. + +Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven's name! Don't stop for breath. Run, +run! Quickening herself by carrying such entreaties in her +thoughts, she ran from field to field, and lane to lane, and place +to place, as she had never run before; until she came to a shed by +an engine-house, where two men lay in the shade, asleep on straw. + +First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and +breathless as she was, what had brought her there, were +difficulties; but they no sooner understood her than their spirits +were on fire like hers. One of the men was in a drunken slumber, +but on his comrade's shouting to him that a man had fallen down the +Old Hell Shaft, he started out to a pool of dirty water, put his +head in it, and came back sober. + +With these two men she ran to another half-a-mile further, and with +that one to another, while they ran elsewhere. Then a horse was +found; and she got another man to ride for life or death to the +railroad, and send a message to Louisa, which she wrote and gave +him. By this time a whole village was up: and windlasses, ropes, +poles, candles, lanterns, all things necessary, were fast +collecting and being brought into one place, to be carried to the +Old Hell Shaft. + +It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying +in the grave where he had been buried alive. She could not bear to +remain away from it any longer - it was like deserting him - and +she hurried swiftly back, accompanied by half-a-dozen labourers, +including the drunken man whom the news had sobered, and who was +the best man of all. When they came to the Old Hell Shaft, they +found it as lonely as she had left it. The men called and listened +as she had done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled +how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements +they wanted should come up. + +Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves, +every whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought +it was a cry at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over +it, and no sound arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass, +waiting and waiting. After they had waited some time, straggling +people who had heard of the accident began to come up; then the +real help of implements began to arrive. In the midst of this, +Rachael returned; and with her party there was a surgeon, who +brought some wine and medicines. But, the expectation among the +people that the man would be found alive was very slight indeed. + +There being now people enough present to impede the work, the +sobered man put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there +by the general consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell +Shaft, and appointed men to keep it. Besides such volunteers as +were accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachael were at first +permitted within this ring; but, later in the day, when the message +brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa, and Mr. +Bounderby, and the whelp, were also there. + +The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first +sat down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men to +descend securely was rigged with poles and ropes. Difficulties had +arisen in the construction of this machine, simple as it was; +requisites had been found wanting, and messages had had to go and +return. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of the bright +autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent down to try the air, +while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together, +attentively watching it: the man at the windlass lowering as they +were told. The candle was brought up again, feebly burning, and +then some water was cast in. Then the bucket was hooked on; and +the sobered man and another got in with lights, giving the word +'Lower away!' + +As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, +there was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women +looking on, that came as it was wont to come. The signal was given +and the windlass stopped, with abundant rope to spare. Apparently +so long an interval ensued with the men at the windlass standing +idle, that some women shrieked that another accident had happened! +But the surgeon who held the watch, declared five minutes not to +have elapsed yet, and sternly admonished them to keep silence. He +had not well done speaking, when the windlass was reversed and +worked again. Practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as +it would if both workmen had been coming up, and that only one was +returning. + +The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled +upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the +pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the +grass. There was an universal cry of 'Alive or dead?' and then a +deep, profound hush. + +When he said 'Alive!' a great shout arose and many eyes had tears +in them. + +'But he's hurt very bad,' he added, as soon as he could make +himself heard again. 'Where's doctor? He's hurt so very bad, sir, +that we donno how to get him up.' + +They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon, +as he asked some questions, and shook his head on receiving the +replies. The sun was setting now; and the red light in the evening +sky touched every face there, and caused it to be distinctly seen +in all its rapt suspense. + +The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and +the pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other small +matters with him. Then the other man came up. In the meantime, +under the surgeon's directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which +others made a thick bed of spare clothes covered with loose straw, +while he himself contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and +handkerchiefs. As these were made, they were hung upon an arm of +the pitman who had last come up, with instructions how to use them: +and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his +powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, and sometimes glancing +down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was +not the least conspicuous figure in the scene. It was dark now, +and torches were kindled. + +It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, which +was quickly repeated all over the circle, that the lost man had +fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half +choked up, and that his fall had been further broken by some jagged +earth at the side. He lay upon his back with one arm doubled under +him, and according to his own belief had hardly stirred since he +fell, except that he had moved his free hand to a side pocket, in +which he remembered to have some bread and meat (of which he had +swallowed crumbs), and had likewise scooped up a little water in it +now and then. He had come straight away from his work, on being +written to, and had walked the whole journey; and was on his way to +Mr. Bounderby's country house after dark, when he fell. He was +crossing that dangerous country at such a dangerous time, because +he was innocent of what was laid to his charge, and couldn't rest +from coming the nearest way to deliver himself up. The Old Hell +Shaft, the pitman said, with a curse upon it, was worthy of its bad +name to the last; for though Stephen could speak now, he believed +it would soon be found to have mangled the life out of him. + +When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hurried charges +from his comrades and the surgeon after the windlass had begun to +lower him, disappeared into the pit. The rope went out as before, +the signal was made as before, and the windlass stopped. No man +removed his hand from it now. Every one waited with his grasp set, +and his body bent down to the work, ready to reverse and wind in. +At length the signal was given, and all the ring leaned forward. + +For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as +it appeared, and the men turned heavily, and the windlass +complained. It was scarcely endurable to look at the rope, and +think of its giving way. But, ring after ring was coiled upon the +barrel of the windlass safely, and the connecting chains appeared, +and finally the bucket with the two men holding on at the sides - a +sight to make the head swim, and oppress the heart - and tenderly +supporting between them, slung and tied within, the figure of a +poor, crushed, human creature. + +A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept +aloud, as this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly +from its iron deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw. At +first, none but the surgeon went close to it. He did what he could +in its adjustment on the couch, but the best that he could do was +to cover it. That gently done, he called to him Rachael and Sissy. +And at that time the pale, worn, patient face was seen looking up +at the sky, with the broken right hand lying bare on the outside of +the covering garments, as if waiting to be taken by another hand. + +They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and +administered some drops of cordial and wine. Though he lay quite +motionless looking up at the sky, he smiled and said, 'Rachael.' +She stooped down on the grass at his side, and bent over him until +her eyes were between his and the sky, for he could not so much as +turn them to look at her. + +'Rachael, my dear.' + +She took his hand. He smiled again and said, 'Don't let 't go.' + +'Thou'rt in great pain, my own dear Stephen?' + +'I ha' been, but not now. I ha' been - dreadful, and dree, and +long, my dear - but 'tis ower now. Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle! Fro' +first to last, a muddle!' + +The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word. + +'I ha' fell into th' pit, my dear, as have cost wi'in the knowledge +o' old fok now livin, hundreds and hundreds o' men's lives - +fathers, sons, brothers, dear to thousands an' thousands, an' +keeping 'em fro' want and hunger. I ha' fell into a pit that ha' +been wi' th' Firedamp crueller than battle. I ha' read on 't in +the public petition, as onny one may read, fro' the men that works +in pits, in which they ha' pray'n and pray'n the lawmakers for +Christ's sake not to let their work be murder to 'em, but to spare +'em for th' wives and children that they loves as well as gentlefok +loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi'out need; when +'tis let alone, it kills wi'out need. See how we die an' no need, +one way an' another - in a muddle - every day!' + +He faintly said it, without any anger against any one. Merely as +the truth. + +'Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her. Thou'rt not +like to forget her now, and me so nigh her. Thou know'st - poor, +patient, suff'rin, dear - how thou didst work for her, seet'n all +day long in her little chair at thy winder, and how she died, young +and misshapen, awlung o' sickly air as had'n no need to be, an' +awlung o' working people's miserable homes. A muddle! Aw a +muddle!' + +Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with his +face turned up to the night sky. + +'If aw th' things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I +should'n ha' had'n need to coom heer. If we was not in a muddle +among ourseln, I should'n ha' been, by my own fellow weavers and +workin' brothers, so mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know'd me +right - if he'd ever know'd me at aw - he would'n ha' took'n +offence wi' me. He would'n ha' suspect'n me. But look up yonder, +Rachael! Look aboove!' + +Following his eyes, she saw that he was gazing at a star. + +'It ha' shined upon me,' he said reverently, 'in my pain and +trouble down below. It ha' shined into my mind. I ha' look'n at +'t and thowt o' thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have +cleared awa, above a bit, I hope. If soom ha' been wantin' in +unnerstan'in me better, I, too, ha' been wantin' in unnerstan'in +them better. When I got thy letter, I easily believen that what +the yoong ledy sen and done to me, and what her brother sen and +done to me, was one, and that there were a wicked plot betwixt 'em. +When I fell, I were in anger wi' her, an' hurryin on t' be as +onjust t' her as oothers was t' me. But in our judgments, like as +in our doins, we mun bear and forbear. In my pain an' trouble, +lookin up yonder, - wi' it shinin on me - I ha' seen more clear, +and ha' made it my dyin prayer that aw th' world may on'y coom +toogether more, an' get a better unnerstan'in o' one another, than +when I were in 't my own weak seln.' + +Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the opposite side to +Rachael, so that he could see her. + +'You ha' heard?' he said, after a few moments' silence. 'I ha' not +forgot you, ledy.' + +'Yes, Stephen, I have heard you. And your prayer is mine.' + +'You ha' a father. Will yo tak' a message to him?' + +'He is here,' said Louisa, with dread. 'Shall I bring him to you?' + +'If yo please.' + +Louisa returned with her father. Standing hand-in-hand, they both +looked down upon the solemn countenance. + +'Sir, yo will clear me an' mak my name good wi' aw men. This I +leave to yo.' + +Mr. Gradgrind was troubled and asked how? + +'Sir,' was the reply: 'yor son will tell yo how. Ask him. I mak +no charges: I leave none ahint me: not a single word. I ha' seen +an' spok'n wi' yor son, one night. I ask no more o' yo than that +yo clear me - an' I trust to yo to do 't.' + +The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon +being anxious for his removal, those who had torches or lanterns, +prepared to go in front of the litter. Before it was raised, and +while they were arranging how to go, he said to Rachael, looking +upward at the star: + +'Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin' on me down there +in my trouble, I thowt it were the star as guided to Our Saviour's +home. I awmust think it be the very star!' + +They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that they were +about to take him in the direction whither the star seemed to him +to lead. + +'Rachael, beloved lass! Don't let go my hand. We may walk +toogether t'night, my dear!' + +'I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Stephen, all the way.' + +'Bless thee! Will soombody be pleased to coover my face!' + +They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes, +and over the wide landscape; Rachael always holding the hand in +hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a +funeral procession. The star had shown him where to find the God +of the poor; and through humility, and sorrow, and forgiveness, he +had gone to his Redeemer's rest. + + + +CHAPTER VII - WHELP-HUNTING + + + +BEFORE the ring formed round the Old Hell Shaft was broken, one +figure had disappeared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his +shadow had not stood near Louisa, who held her father's arm, but in +a retired place by themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to +the couch, Sissy, attentive to all that happened, slipped behind +that wicked shadow - a sight in the horror of his face, if there +had been eyes there for any sight but one - and whispered in his +ear. Without turning his head, he conferred with her a few +moments, and vanished. Thus the whelp had gone out of the circle +before the people moved. + +When the father reached home, he sent a message to Mr. Bounderby's, +desiring his son to come to him directly. The reply was, that Mr. +Bounderby having missed him in the crowd, and seeing nothing of him +since, had supposed him to be at Stone Lodge. + +'I believe, father,' said Louisa, 'he will not come back to town +to-night.' Mr. Gradgrind turned away, and said no more. + +In the morning, he went down to the Bank himself as soon as it was +opened, and seeing his son's place empty (he had not the courage to +look in at first) went back along the street to meet Mr. Bounderby +on his way there. To whom he said that, for reasons he would soon +explain, but entreated not then to be asked for, he had found it +necessary to employ his son at a distance for a little while. +Also, that he was charged with the duty of vindicating Stephen +Blackpool's memory, and declaring the thief. Mr. Bounderby quite +confounded, stood stock-still in the street after his father-in-law +had left him, swelling like an immense soap-bubble, without its +beauty. + +Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, and kept it +all that day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped at his door, he said, +without opening it, 'Not now, my dears; in the evening.' On their +return in the evening, he said, 'I am not able yet - to-morrow.' +He ate nothing all day, and had no candle after dark; and they +heard him walking to and fro late at night. + +But, in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the usual hour, and +took his usual place at the table. Aged and bent he looked, and +quite bowed down; and yet he looked a wiser man, and a better man, +than in the days when in this life he wanted nothing - but Facts. +Before he left the room, he appointed a time for them to come to +him; and so, with his gray head drooping, went away. + +'Dear father,' said Louisa, when they kept their appointment, 'you +have three young children left. They will be different, I will be +different yet, with Heaven's help.' + +She gave her hand to Sissy, as if she meant with her help too. + +'Your wretched brother,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Do you think he had +planned this robbery, when he went with you to the lodging?' + +'I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money very much, and had +spent a great deal.' + +'The poor man being about to leave the town, it came into his evil +brain to cast suspicion on him?' + +'I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat there, father. +For I asked him to go there with me. The visit did not originate +with him.' + +'He had some conversation with the poor man. Did he take him +aside?' + +'He took him out of the room. I asked him afterwards, why he had +done so, and he made a plausible excuse; but since last night, +father, and when I remember the circumstances by its light, I am +afraid I can imagine too truly what passed between them.' + +'Let me know,' said her father, 'if your thoughts present your +guilty brother in the same dark view as mine.' + +'I fear, father,' hesitated Louisa, 'that he must have made some +representation to Stephen Blackpool - perhaps in my name, perhaps +in his own - which induced him to do in good faith and honesty, +what he had never done before, and to wait about the Bank those two +or three nights before he left the town.' + +'Too plain!' returned the father. 'Too plain!' + +He shaded his face, and remained silent for some moments. +Recovering himself, he said: + +'And now, how is he to be found? How is he to be saved from +justice? In the few hours that I can possibly allow to elapse +before I publish the truth, how is he to be found by us, and only +by us? Ten thousand pounds could not effect it.' + +'Sissy has effected it, father.' + +He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy in his +house, and said in a tone of softened gratitude and grateful +kindness, 'It is always you, my child!' + +'We had our fears,' Sissy explained, glancing at Louisa, 'before +yesterday; and when I saw you brought to the side of the litter +last night, and heard what passed (being close to Rachael all the +time), I went to him when no one saw, and said to him, "Don't look +at me. See where your father is. Escape at once, for his sake and +your own!" He was in a tremble before I whispered to him, and he +started and trembled more then, and said, "Where can I go? I have +very little money, and I don't know who will hide me!" I thought +of father's old circus. I have not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes +at this time of year, and I read of him in a paper only the other +day. I told him to hurry there, and tell his name, and ask Mr. +Sleary to hide him till I came. "I'll get to him before the +morning," he said. And I saw him shrink away among the people.' + +'Thank Heaven!' exclaimed his father. 'He may be got abroad yet.' + +It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy had directed him +was within three hours' journey of Liverpool, whence he could be +swiftly dispatched to any part of the world. But, caution being +necessary in communicating with him - for there was a greater +danger every moment of his being suspected now, and nobody could be +sure at heart but that Mr. Bounderby himself, in a bullying vein of +public zeal, might play a Roman part - it was consented that Sissy +and Louisa should repair to the place in question, by a circuitous +course, alone; and that the unhappy father, setting forth in an +opposite direction, should get round to the same bourne by another +and wider route. It was further agreed that he should not present +himself to Mr. Sleary, lest his intentions should be mistrusted, or +the intelligence of his arrival should cause his son to take flight +anew; but, that the communication should be left to Sissy and +Louisa to open; and that they should inform the cause of so much +misery and disgrace, of his father's being at hand and of the +purpose for which they had come. When these arrangements had been +well considered and were fully understood by all three, it was time +to begin to carry them into execution. Early in the afternoon, Mr. +Gradgrind walked direct from his own house into the country, to be +taken up on the line by which he was to travel; and at night the +remaining two set forth upon their different course, encouraged by +not seeing any face they knew. + +The two travelled all night, except when they were left, for odd +numbers of minutes, at branch-places, up illimitable flights of +steps, or down wells - which was the only variety of those branches +- and, early in the morning, were turned out on a swamp, a mile or +two from the town they sought. From this dismal spot they were +rescued by a savage old postilion, who happened to be up early, +kicking a horse in a fly: and so were smuggled into the town by +all the back lanes where the pigs lived: which, although not a +magnificent or even savoury approach, was, as is usual in such +cases, the legitimate highway. + +The first thing they saw on entering the town was the skeleton of +Sleary's Circus. The company had departed for another town more +than twenty miles off, and had opened there last night. The +connection between the two places was by a hilly turnpike-road, and +the travelling on that road was very slow. Though they took but a +hasty breakfast, and no rest (which it would have been in vain to +seek under such anxious circumstances), it was noon before they +began to find the bills of Sleary's Horse-riding on barns and +walls, and one o'clock when they stopped in the market-place. + +A Grand Morning Performance by the Riders, commencing at that very +hour, was in course of announcement by the bellman as they set +their feet upon the stones of the street. Sissy recommended that, +to avoid making inquiries and attracting attention in the town, +they should present themselves to pay at the door. If Mr. Sleary +were taking the money, he would be sure to know her, and would +proceed with discretion. If he were not, he would be sure to see +them inside; and, knowing what he had done with the fugitive, would +proceed with discretion still. + +Therefore, they repaired, with fluttering hearts, to the well- +remembered booth. The flag with the inscription SLEARY'S HORSE- +RIDING was there; and the Gothic niche was there; but Mr. Sleary +was not there. Master Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to +be received by the wildest credulity as Cupid any more, had yielded +to the invincible force of circumstances (and his beard), and, in +the capacity of a man who made himself generally useful, presided +on this occasion over the exchequer - having also a drum in +reserve, on which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous +forces. In the extreme sharpness of his look out for base coin, +Mr. Kidderminster, as at present situated, never saw anything but +money; so Sissy passed him unrecognised, and they went in. + +The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse stencilled with +black spots, was twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as it is +the favourite recreation of that monarch to do. Sissy, though well +acquainted with his Royal line, had no personal knowledge of the +present Emperor, and his reign was peaceful. Miss Josephine +Sleary, in her celebrated graceful Equestrian Tyrolean Flower Act, +was then announced by a new clown (who humorously said Cauliflower +Act), and Mr. Sleary appeared, leading her in. + +Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the Clown with his long whip- +lash, and the Clown had only said, 'If you do it again, I'll throw +the horse at you!' when Sissy was recognised both by father and +daughter. But they got through the Act with great self-possession; +and Mr. Sleary, saving for the first instant, conveyed no more +expression into his locomotive eye than into his fixed one. The +performance seemed a little long to Sissy and Louisa, particularly +when it stopped to afford the Clown an opportunity of telling Mr. +Sleary (who said 'Indeed, sir!' to all his observations in the +calmest way, and with his eye on the house) about two legs sitting +on three legs looking at one leg, when in came four legs, and laid +hold of one leg, and up got two legs, caught hold of three legs, +and threw 'em at four legs, who ran away with one leg. For, +although an ingenious Allegory relating to a butcher, a three- +legged stool, a dog, and a leg of mutton, this narrative consumed +time; and they were in great suspense. At last, however, little +fair-haired Josephine made her curtsey amid great applause; and the +Clown, left alone in the ring, had just warmed himself, and said, +'Now I'll have a turn!' when Sissy was touched on the shoulder, and +beckoned out. + +She took Louisa with her; and they were received by Mr. Sleary in a +very little private apartment, with canvas sides, a grass floor, +and a wooden ceiling all aslant, on which the box company stamped +their approbation, as if they were coming through. 'Thethilia,' +said Mr. Sleary, who had brandy and water at hand, 'it doth me good +to thee you. You wath alwayth a favourite with uth, and you've +done uth credith thinth the old timeth I'm thure. You mutht thee +our people, my dear, afore we thpeak of bithnith, or they'll break +their hearth - ethpethially the women. Here'th Jothphine hath been +and got married to E. W. B. Childerth, and thee hath got a boy, and +though he'th only three yearth old, he thtickth on to any pony you +can bring againtht him. He'th named The Little Wonder of +Thcolathtic Equitation; and if you don't hear of that boy at +Athley'th, you'll hear of him at Parith. And you recollect +Kidderminthter, that wath thought to be rather thweet upon +yourthelf? Well. He'th married too. Married a widder. Old +enough to be hith mother. Thee wath Tightrope, thee wath, and now +thee'th nothing - on accounth of fat. They've got two children, +tho we're thtrong in the Fairy bithnith and the Nurthery dodge. If +you wath to thee our Children in the Wood, with their father and +mother both a dyin' on a horthe - their uncle a retheiving of 'em +ath hith wardth, upon a horthe - themthelvth both a goin' a black- +berryin' on a horthe - and the Robinth a coming in to cover 'em +with leavth, upon a horthe - you'd thay it wath the completetht +thing ath ever you thet your eyeth on! And you remember Emma +Gordon, my dear, ath wath a'motht a mother to you? Of courthe you +do; I needn't athk. Well! Emma, thee lotht her huthband. He wath +throw'd a heavy back-fall off a Elephant in a thort of a Pagoda +thing ath the Thultan of the Indieth, and he never got the better +of it; and thee married a thecond time - married a Cheethemonger +ath fell in love with her from the front - and he'th a Overtheer +and makin' a fortun.' + +These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath now, +related with great heartiness, and with a wonderful kind of +innocence, considering what a bleary and brandy-and-watery old +veteran he was. Afterwards he brought in Josephine, and E. W. B. +Childers (rather deeply lined in the jaws by daylight), and the +Little Wonder of Scholastic Equitation, and in a word, all the +company. Amazing creatures they were in Louisa's eyes, so white +and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative of +leg; but it was very agreeable to see them crowding about Sissy, +and very natural in Sissy to be unable to refrain from tears. + +'There! Now Thethilia hath kithd all the children, and hugged all +the women, and thaken handth all round with all the men, clear, +every one of you, and ring in the band for the thecond part!' + +As soon as they were gone, he continued in a low tone. 'Now, +Thethilia, I don't athk to know any thecreth, but I thuppothe I may +conthider thith to be Mith Thquire.' + +'This is his sister. Yes.' + +'And t'other on'th daughter. That'h what I mean. Hope I thee you +well, mith. And I hope the Thquire'th well?' + +'My father will be here soon,' said Louisa, anxious to bring him to +the point. 'Is my brother safe?' + +'Thafe and thound!' he replied. 'I want you jutht to take a peep +at the Ring, mith, through here. Thethilia, you know the dodgeth; +find a thpy-hole for yourthelf.' + +They each looked through a chink in the boards. + +'That'h Jack the Giant Killer - piethe of comic infant bithnith,' +said Sleary. 'There'th a property-houthe, you thee, for Jack to +hide in; there'th my Clown with a thauthepan-lid and a thpit, for +Jack'th thervant; there'th little Jack himthelf in a thplendid +thoot of armour; there'th two comic black thervanth twithe ath big +ath the houthe, to thtand by it and to bring it in and clear it; +and the Giant (a very ecthpenthive bathket one), he an't on yet. +Now, do you thee 'em all?' + +'Yes,' they both said. + +'Look at 'em again,' said Sleary, 'look at 'em well. You thee em +all? Very good. Now, mith;' he put a form for them to sit on; 'I +have my opinionth, and the Thquire your father hath hith. I don't +want to know what your brother'th been up to; ith better for me not +to know. All I thay ith, the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and +I'll thtand by the Thquire. Your brother ith one them black +thervanth.' + +Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly of +satisfaction. + +'Ith a fact,' said Sleary, 'and even knowin' it, you couldn't put +your finger on him. Let the Thquire come. I thall keep your +brother here after the performanth. I thant undreth him, nor yet +wath hith paint off. Let the Thquire come here after the +performanth, or come here yourthelf after the performanth, and you +thall find your brother, and have the whole plathe to talk to him +in. Never mind the lookth of him, ath long ath he'th well hid.' + +Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, detained Mr. +Sleary no longer then. She left her love for her brother, with her +eyes full of tears; and she and Sissy went away until later in the +afternoon. + +Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too had +encountered no one whom he knew; and was now sanguine with Sleary's +assistance, of getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. +As neither of the three could be his companion without almost +identifying him under any disguise, he prepared a letter to a +correspondent whom he could trust, beseeching him to ship the +bearer off at any cost, to North or South America, or any distant +part of the world to which he could be the most speedily and +privately dispatched. + +This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be quite +vacated; not only by the audience, but by the company and by the +horses. After watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring +out a chair and sit down by the side-door, smoking; as if that were +his signal that they might approach. + +'Your thervant, Thquire,' was his cautious salutation as they +passed in. 'If you want me you'll find me here. You muthn't mind +your thon having a comic livery on.' + +They all three went in; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on the +Clown's performing chair in the middle of the ring. On one of the +back benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of +the place, sat the villainous whelp, sulky to the last, whom he had +the misery to call his son. + +In a preposterous coat, like a beadle's, with cuffs and flaps +exaggerated to an unspeakable extent; in an immense waistcoat, +knee-breeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked hat; with nothing +fitting him, and everything of coarse material, moth-eaten and full +of holes; with seams in his black face, where fear and heat had +started through the greasy composition daubed all over it; anything +so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful as the whelp in his +comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other means have +believed in, weighable and measurable fact though it was. And one +of his model children had come to this! + +At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in +remaining up there by himself. Yielding at length, if any +concession so sullenly made can be called yielding, to the +entreaties of Sissy - for Louisa he disowned altogether - he came +down, bench by bench, until he stood in the sawdust, on the verge +of the circle, as far as possible, within its limits from where his +father sat. + +'How was this done?' asked the father. + +'How was what done?' moodily answered the son. + +'This robbery,' said the father, raising his voice upon the word. + +'I forced the safe myself over night, and shut it up ajar before I +went away. I had had the key that was found, made long before. I +dropped it that morning, that it might be supposed to have been +used. I didn't take the money all at once. I pretended to put my +balance away every night, but I didn't. Now you know all about +it.' + +'If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,' said the father, 'it would +have shocked me less than this!' + +'I don't see why,' grumbled the son. 'So many people are employed +in situations of trust; so many people, out of so many, will be +dishonest. I have heard you talk, a hundred times, of its being a +law. How can I help laws? You have comforted others with such +things, father. Comfort yourself!' + +The father buried his face in his hands, and the son stood in his +disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw: his hands, with the black +partly worn away inside, looking like the hands of a monkey. The +evening was fast closing in; and from time to time, he turned the +whites of his eyes restlessly and impatiently towards his father. +They were the only parts of his face that showed any life or +expression, the pigment upon it was so thick. + +'You must be got to Liverpool, and sent abroad.' + +'I suppose I must. I can't be more miserable anywhere,' whimpered +the whelp, 'than I have been here, ever since I can remember. +That's one thing.' + +Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and returned with Sleary, to whom +he submitted the question, How to get this deplorable object away? + +'Why, I've been thinking of it, Thquire. There'th not muth time to +lothe, tho you muth thay yeth or no. Ith over twenty mileth to the +rail. There'th a coath in half an hour, that goeth to the rail, +'purpothe to cath the mail train. That train will take him right +to Liverpool.' + +'But look at him,' groaned Mr. Gradgrind. 'Will any coach - ' + +'I don't mean that he thould go in the comic livery,' said Sleary. +'Thay the word, and I'll make a Jothkin of him, out of the +wardrobe, in five minutes.' + +'I don't understand,' said Mr. Gradgrind. + +'A Jothkin - a Carter. Make up your mind quick, Thquire. There'll +be beer to feth. I've never met with nothing but beer ath'll ever +clean a comic blackamoor.' + +Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented; Mr. Sleary rapidly turned out from +a box, a smock frock, a felt hat, and other essentials; the whelp +rapidly changed clothes behind a screen of baize; Mr. Sleary +rapidly brought beer, and washed him white again. + +'Now,' said Sleary, 'come along to the coath, and jump up behind; +I'll go with you there, and they'll thuppothe you one of my people. +Thay farewell to your family, and tharp'th the word.' With which +he delicately retired. + +'Here is your letter,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'All necessary means +will be provided for you. Atone, by repentance and better conduct, +for the shocking action you have committed, and the dreadful +consequences to which it has led. Give me your hand, my poor boy, +and may God forgive you as I do!' + +The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these words and +their pathetic tone. But, when Louisa opened her arms, he repulsed +her afresh. + +'Not you. I don't want to have anything to say to you!' + +'O Tom, Tom, do we end so, after all my love!' + +'After all your love!' he returned, obdurately. 'Pretty love! +Leaving old Bounderby to himself, and packing my best friend Mr. +Harthouse off, and going home just when I was in the greatest +danger. Pretty love that! Coming out with every word about our +having gone to that place, when you saw the net was gathering round +me. Pretty love that! You have regularly given me up. You never +cared for me.' + +'Tharp'th the word!' said Sleary, at the door. + +They all confusedly went out: Louisa crying to him that she +forgave him, and loved him still, and that he would one day be +sorry to have left her so, and glad to think of these her last +words, far away: when some one ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind +and Sissy, who were both before him while his sister yet clung to +his shoulder, stopped and recoiled. + +For, there was Bitzer, out of breath, his thin lips parted, his +thin nostrils distended, his white eyelashes quivering, his +colourless face more colourless than ever, as if he ran himself +into a white heat, when other people ran themselves into a glow. +There he stood, panting and heaving, as if he had never stopped +since the night, now long ago, when he had run them down before. + +'I'm sorry to interfere with your plans,' said Bitzer, shaking his +head, 'but I can't allow myself to be done by horse-riders. I must +have young Mr. Tom; he mustn't be got away by horse-riders; here he +is in a smock frock, and I must have him!' + +By the collar, too, it seemed. For, so he took possession of him. + + + +CHAPTER VIII - PHILOSOPHICAL + + + +THEY went back into the booth, Sleary shutting the door to keep +intruders out. Bitzer, still holding the paralysed culprit by the +collar, stood in the Ring, blinking at his old patron through the +darkness of the twilight. + +'Bitzer,' said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and miserably submissive +to him, 'have you a heart?' + +'The circulation, sir,' returned Bitzer, smiling at the oddity of +the question, 'couldn't be carried on without one. No man, sir, +acquainted with the facts established by Harvey relating to the +circulation of the blood, can doubt that I have a heart.' + +'Is it accessible,' cried Mr. Gradgrind, 'to any compassionate +influence?' + +'It is accessible to Reason, sir,' returned the excellent young +man. 'And to nothing else.' + +They stood looking at each other; Mr. Gradgrind's face as white as +the pursuer's. + +'What motive - even what motive in reason - can you have for +preventing the escape of this wretched youth,' said Mr. Gradgrind, +'and crushing his miserable father? See his sister here. Pity +us!' + +'Sir,' returned Bitzer, in a very business-like and logical manner, +'since you ask me what motive I have in reason, for taking young +Mr. Tom back to Coketown, it is only reasonable to let you know. I +have suspected young Mr. Tom of this bank-robbery from the first. +I had had my eye upon him before that time, for I knew his ways. I +have kept my observations to myself, but I have made them; and I +have got ample proofs against him now, besides his running away, +and besides his own confession, which I was just in time to +overhear. I had the pleasure of watching your house yesterday +morning, and following you here. I am going to take young Mr. Tom +back to Coketown, in order to deliver him over to Mr. Bounderby. +Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Bounderby will then promote +me to young Mr. Tom's situation. And I wish to have his situation, +sir, for it will be a rise to me, and will do me good.' + +'If this is solely a question of self-interest with you - ' Mr. +Gradgrind began. + +'I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,' returned Bitzer; +'but I am sure you know that the whole social system is a question +of self-interest. What you must always appeal to, is a person's +self-interest. It's your only hold. We are so constituted. I was +brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are +aware.' + +'What sum of money,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'will you set against your +expected promotion?' + +'Thank you, sir,' returned Bitzer, 'for hinting at the proposal; +but I will not set any sum against it. Knowing that your clear +head would propose that alternative, I have gone over the +calculations in my mind; and I find that to compound a felony, even +on very high terms indeed, would not be as safe and good for me as +my improved prospects in the Bank.' + +'Bitzer,' said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he +would have said, See how miserable I am! 'Bitzer, I have but one +chance left to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, +in remembrance of the pains bestowed upon you there, you can +persuade yourself in any degree to disregard your present interest +and release my son, I entreat and pray you to give him the benefit +of that remembrance.' + +'I really wonder, sir,' rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative +manner, 'to find you taking a position so untenable. My schooling +was paid for; it was a bargain; and when I came away, the bargain +ended.' + +It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that +everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to +give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. +Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it +were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth +to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't +get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and +we had no business there. + +'I don't deny,' added Bitzer, 'that my schooling was cheap. But +that comes right, sir. I was made in the cheapest market, and have +to dispose of myself in the dearest.' + +He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and Sissy crying. + +'Pray don't do that,' said he, 'it's of no use doing that: it only +worries. You seem to think that I have some animosity against +young Mr. Tom; whereas I have none at all. I am only going, on the +reasonable grounds I have mentioned, to take him back to Coketown. +If he was to resist, I should set up the cry of Stop thief! But, +he won't resist, you may depend upon it.' + +Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as +immovably jammed in his head as his fixed one, had listened to +these doctrines with profound attention, here stepped forward. + +'Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter knowth +perfectly well (better than you, becauthe I thed it to her), that I +didn't know what your thon had done, and that I didn't want to know +- I thed it wath better not, though I only thought, then, it wath +thome thkylarking. However, thith young man having made it known +to be a robbery of a bank, why, that'h a theriouth thing; muth too +theriouth a thing for me to compound, ath thith young man hath very +properly called it. Conthequently, Thquire, you muthn't quarrel +with me if I take thith young man'th thide, and thay he'th right +and there'th no help for it. But I tell you what I'll do, Thquire; +I'll drive your thon and thith young man over to the rail, and +prevent expothure here. I can't conthent to do more, but I'll do +that.' + +Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and deeper affliction on Mr. +Gradgrind's part, followed this desertion of them by their last +friend. But, Sissy glanced at him with great attention; nor did +she in her own breast misunderstand him. As they were all going +out again, he favoured her with one slight roll of his movable eye, +desiring her to linger behind. As he locked the door, he said +excitedly: + +'The Thquire thtood by you, Thethilia, and I'll thtand by the +Thquire. More than that: thith ith a prethiouth rathcal, and +belongth to that bluthtering Cove that my people nearly pitht out +o' winder. It'll be a dark night; I've got a horthe that'll do +anything but thpeak; I've got a pony that'll go fifteen mile an +hour with Childerth driving of him; I've got a dog that'll keep a +man to one plathe four-and-twenty hourth. Get a word with the +young Thquire. Tell him, when he theeth our horthe begin to +danthe, not to be afraid of being thpilt, but to look out for a +pony-gig coming up. Tell him, when he theeth that gig clothe by, +to jump down, and it'll take him off at a rattling pathe. If my +dog leth thith young man thtir a peg on foot, I give him leave to +go. And if my horthe ever thtirth from that thpot where he beginth +a danthing, till the morning - I don't know him? - Tharp'th the +word!' + +The word was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Childers, sauntering +about the market-place in a pair of slippers, had his cue, and Mr. +Sleary's equipage was ready. It was a fine sight, to behold the +learned dog barking round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him, with +his one practicable eye, that Bitzer was the object of his +particular attentions. Soon after dark they all three got in and +started; the learned dog (a formidable creature) already pinning +Bitzer with his eye, and sticking close to the wheel on his side, +that he might be ready for him in the event of his showing the +slightest disposition to alight. + +The other three sat up at the inn all night in great suspense. At +eight o'clock in the morning Mr. Sleary and the dog reappeared: +both in high spirits. + +'All right, Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, 'your thon may be aboard-a- +thip by thith time. Childerth took him off, an hour and a half +after we left there latht night. The horthe danthed the polka till +he wath dead beat (he would have walthed if he hadn't been in +harneth), and then I gave him the word and he went to thleep +comfortable. When that prethiouth young Rathcal thed he'd go +for'ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith neck-hankercher with all +four legth in the air and pulled him down and rolled him over. Tho +he come back into the drag, and there he that, 'till I turned the +horthe'th head, at half-patht thixth thith morning.' + +Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of course; and hinted as +delicately as he could, at a handsome remuneration in money. + +'I don't want money mythelf, Thquire; but Childerth ith a family +man, and if you wath to like to offer him a five-pound note, it +mightn't be unactheptable. Likewithe if you wath to thtand a +collar for the dog, or a thet of bellth for the horthe, I thould be +very glad to take 'em. Brandy and water I alwayth take.' He had +already called for a glass, and now called for another. 'If you +wouldn't think it going too far, Thquire, to make a little thpread +for the company at about three and thixth ahead, not reckoning +Luth, it would make 'em happy.' + +All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind very +willingly undertook to render. Though he thought them far too +slight, he said, for such a service. + +'Very well, Thquire; then, if you'll only give a Horthe-riding, a +bethpeak, whenever you can, you'll more than balanthe the account. +Now, Thquire, if your daughter will ethcuthe me, I thould like one +parting word with you.' + +Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room; Mr. Sleary, +stirring and drinking his brandy and water as he stood, went on: + +'Thquire, - you don't need to be told that dogth ith wonderful +animalth.' + +'Their instinct,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'is surprising.' + +'Whatever you call it - and I'm bletht if I know what to call it' - +said Sleary, 'it ith athtonithing. The way in whith a dog'll find +you - the dithtanthe he'll come!' + +'His scent,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'being so fine.' + +'I'm bletht if I know what to call it,' repeated Sleary, shaking +his head, 'but I have had dogth find me, Thquire, in a way that +made me think whether that dog hadn't gone to another dog, and +thed, "You don't happen to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, +do you? Perthon of the name of Thleary, in the Horthe-Riding way - +thtout man - game eye?" And whether that dog mightn't have thed, +"Well, I can't thay I know him mythelf, but I know a dog that I +think would be likely to be acquainted with him." And whether that +dog mightn't have thought it over, and thed, "Thleary, Thleary! O +yeth, to be thure! A friend of mine menthioned him to me at one +time. I can get you hith addreth directly." In conthequenth of my +being afore the public, and going about tho muth, you thee, there +mutht be a number of dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that I +don't know!' + +Mr. Gradgrind seemed to be quite confounded by this speculation. + +'Any way,' said Sleary, after putting his lips to his brandy and +water, 'ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, thinthe we wath at +Chethter. We wath getting up our Children in the Wood one morning, +when there cometh into our Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He had +travelled a long way, he wath in a very bad condithon, he wath +lame, and pretty well blind. He went round to our children, one +after another, as if he wath a theeking for a child he know'd; and +then he come to me, and throwd hithelf up behind, and thtood on +hith two forelegth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail +and died. Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth.' + +'Sissy's father's dog!' + +'Thethilia'th father'th old dog. Now, Thquire, I can take my oath, +from my knowledge of that dog, that that man wath dead - and buried +- afore that dog come back to me. Joth'phine and Childerth and me +talked it over a long time, whether I thould write or not. But we +agreed, "No. There'th nothing comfortable to tell; why unthettle +her mind, and make her unhappy?" Tho, whether her father bathely +detherted her; or whether he broke hith own heart alone, rather +than pull her down along with him; never will be known, now, +Thquire, till - no, not till we know how the dogth findth uth out!' + +'She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour; and she +will believe in his affection to the last moment of her life,' said +Mr. Gradgrind. + +'It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, don't it, +Thquire?' said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down into the depths +of his brandy and water: 'one, that there ith a love in the world, +not all Thelf-interetht after all, but thomething very different; +t'other, that it bath a way of ith own of calculating or not +calculating, whith thomehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to +give a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!' + +Mr. Gradgrind looked out of window, and made no reply. Mr. Sleary +emptied his glass and recalled the ladies. + +'Thethilia my dear, kith me and good-bye! Mith Thquire, to thee +you treating of her like a thithter, and a thithter that you trutht +and honour with all your heart and more, ith a very pretty thight +to me. I hope your brother may live to be better detherving of +you, and a greater comfort to you. Thquire, thake handth, firtht +and latht! Don't be croth with uth poor vagabondth. People mutht +be amuthed. They can't be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can't +be alwayth a working, they an't made for it. You mutht have uth, +Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the +betht of uth; not the wurtht!' + +'And I never thought before,' said Mr. Sleary, putting his head in +at the door again to say it, 'that I wath tho muth of a Cackler!' + + + +CHAPTER IX - FINAL + + + +IT is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain +blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. +Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, +and presumed to be wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her +for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this +presumption, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over +and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning like a +great snowball. At last he made the discovery that to discharge +this highly connected female - to have it in his power to say, 'She +was a woman of family, and wanted to stick to me, but I wouldn't +have it, and got rid of her' - would be to get the utmost possible +amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at the same +time to punish Mrs. Sparsit according to her deserts. + +Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr. Bounderby came +in to lunch, and sat himself down in the dining-room of former +days, where his portrait was. Mrs. Sparsit sat by the fire, with +her foot in her cotton stirrup, little thinking whither she was +posting. + +Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered her pity for +Mr. Bounderby with a veil of quiet melancholy and contrition. In +virtue thereof, it had become her habit to assume a woful look, +which woful look she now bestowed upon her patron. + +'What's the matter now, ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby, in a very +short, rough way. + +'Pray, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'do not bite my nose off.' + +'Bite your nose off, ma'am?' repeated Mr. Bounderby. 'Your nose!' +meaning, as Mrs. Sparsit conceived, that it was too developed a +nose for the purpose. After which offensive implication, he cut +himself a crust of bread, and threw the knife down with a noise. + +Mrs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stirrup, and said, 'Mr. +Bounderby, sir!' + +'Well, ma'am?' retorted Mr. Bounderby. 'What are you staring at?' + +'May I ask, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'have you been ruffled this +morning?' + +'Yes, ma'am.' + +'May I inquire, sir,' pursued the injured woman, 'whether I am the +unfortunate cause of your having lost your temper?' + +'Now, I'll tell you what, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'I am not come +here to be bullied. A female may be highly connected, but she +can't be permitted to bother and badger a man in my position, and I +am not going to put up with it.' (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary +to get on: foreseeing that if he allowed of details, he would be +beaten.) + +Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriolanian +eyebrows; gathered up her work into its proper basket; and rose. + +'Sir,' said she, majestically. 'It is apparent to me that I am in +your way at present. I will retire to my own apartment.' + +'Allow me to open the door, ma'am.' + +'Thank you, sir; I can do it for myself.' + +'You had better allow me, ma'am,' said Bounderby, passing her, and +getting his hand upon the lock; 'because I can take the opportunity +of saying a word to you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, I +rather think you are cramped here, do you know? It appears to me, +that, under my humble roof, there's hardly opening enough for a +lady of your genius in other people's affairs.' + +Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and said with +great politeness, 'Really, sir?' + +'I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late affairs have +happened, ma'am,' said Bounderby; 'and it appears to my poor +judgment - ' + +'Oh! Pray, sir,' Mrs. Sparsit interposed, with sprightly +cheerfulness, 'don't disparage your judgment. Everybody knows how +unerring Mr. Bounderby's judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of +it. It must be the theme of general conversation. Disparage +anything in yourself but your judgment, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, +laughing. + +Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed: + +'It appears to me, ma'am, I say, that a different sort of +establishment altogether would bring out a lady of your powers. +Such an establishment as your relation, Lady Scadgers's, now. +Don't you think you might find some affairs there, ma'am, to +interfere with?' + +'It never occurred to me before, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit; 'but +now you mention it, should think it highly probable.' + +'Then suppose you try, ma'am,' said Bounderby, laying an envelope +with a cheque in it in her little basket. 'You can take your own +time for going, ma'am; but perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be +more agreeable to a lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals +by herself, and not to be intruded upon. I really ought to +apologise to you - being only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown - for +having stood in your light so long.' + +'Pray don't name it, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'If that +portrait could speak, sir - but it has the advantage over the +original of not possessing the power of committing itself and +disgusting others, - it would testify, that a long period has +elapsed since I first habitually addressed it as the picture of a +Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle does, can awaken surprise or +indignation; the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire +contempt.' + +Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features like a medal +struck to commemorate her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him +fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully past him, and +ascended the staircase. Mr. Bounderby closed the door, and stood +before the fire; projecting himself after his old explosive manner +into his portrait - and into futurity. + + +Into how much of futurity? He saw Mrs. Sparsit fighting out a +daily fight at the points of all the weapons in the female armoury, +with the grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting Lady Scadgers, +still laid up in bed with her mysterious leg, and gobbling her +insufficient income down by about the middle of every quarter, in a +mean little airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for +two; but did he see more? Did he catch any glimpse of himself +making a show of Bitzer to strangers, as the rising young man, so +devoted to his master's great merits, who had won young Tom's +place, and had almost captured young Tom himself, in the times when +by various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint +reflection of his own image making a vain-glorious will, whereby +five-and-twenty Humbugs, past five-and-fifty years of age, each +taking upon himself the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, should +for ever dine in Bounderby Hall, for ever lodge in Bounderby +buildings, for ever attend a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to sleep +under a Bounderby chaplain, for ever be supported out of a +Bounderby estate, and for ever nauseate all healthy stomachs, with +a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and bluster? Had he any +prescience of the day, five years to come, when Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown was to die of a fit in the Coketown street, and this same +precious will was to begin its long career of quibble, plunder, +false pretences, vile example, little service and much law? +Probably not. Yet the portrait was to see it all out. + +Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour, +sitting thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity did he +see? Did he see himself, a white-haired decrepit man, bending his +hitherto inflexible theories to appointed circumstances; making his +facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity; and no +longer trying to grind that Heavenly trio in his dusty little +mills? Did he catch sight of himself, therefore much despised by +his late political associates? Did he see them, in the era of its +being quite settled that the national dustmen have only to do with +one another, and owe no duty to an abstraction called a People, +'taunting the honourable gentleman' with this and with that and +with what not, five nights a-week, until the small hours of the +morning? Probably he had that much foreknowledge, knowing his men. + + +Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the fire as +in days of yore, though with a gentler and a humbler face. How +much of the future might arise before her vision? Broadsides in +the streets, signed with her father's name, exonerating the late +Stephen Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing +the guilt of his own son, with such extenuation as his years and +temptation (he could not bring himself to add, his education) might +beseech; were of the Present. So, Stephen Blackpool's tombstone, +with her father's record of his death, was almost of the Present, +for she knew it was to be. These things she could plainly see. +But, how much of the Future? + +A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once +again appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to +and fro at the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of +pensive beauty, always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and +serene, and even cheerful; who, of all the people in the place, +alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of +her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of +her, and crying to her; a woman working, ever working, but content +to do it, and preferring to do it as her natural lot, until she +should be too old to labour any more? Did Louisa see this? Such a +thing was to be. + +A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away, writing, on paper +blotted with tears, that her words had too soon come true, and that +all the treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered for a +sight of her dear face? At length this brother coming nearer home, +with hope of seeing her, and being delayed by illness; and then a +letter, in a strange hand, saying 'he died in hospital, of fever, +such a day, and died in penitence and love of you: his last word +being your name'? Did Louisa see these things? Such things were +to be. + +Herself again a wife - a mother - lovingly watchful of her +children, ever careful that they should have a childhood of the +mind no less than a childhood of the body, as knowing it to be even +a more beautiful thing, and a possession, any hoarded scrap of +which, is a blessing and happiness to the wisest? Did Louisa see +this? Such a thing was never to be. + +But, happy Sissy's happy children loving her; all children loving +her; she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and +pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler +fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and +reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which +the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood +will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity +figures can show, will be the Writing on the Wall, - she holding +this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, +or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy +fair; but simply as a duty to be done, - did Louisa see these +things of herself? These things were to be. + +Dear reader! It rests with you and me, whether, in our two fields +of action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be! We shall +sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our +fires turn gray and cold. + + + + + +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Hard Times, by Charles Dickens* + diff --git a/old/hardt10.zip b/old/hardt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5db9f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hardt10.zip diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-0.txt b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b69cfd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11679 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARD TIMES *** + + + + + HARD TIMES + AND + REPRINTED PIECES {0} + + + * * * * * + + By CHARLES DICKENS + + * * * * * + + _With illustrations by Marcus Stone_, _Maurice_ + _Greiffenhagen_, _and F. Walker_ + + * * * * * + + LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD. + NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + 1905 + + + + +CONTENTS + + _BOOK THE FIRST_. _SOWING_ + PAGE + CHAPTER I +_The One Thing Needful_ 3 + CHAPTER II +_Murdering the Innocents_ 4 + CHAPTER III +_A Loophole_ 8 + CHAPTER IV +_Mr. Bounderby_ 12 + CHAPTER V +_The Keynote_ 18 + CHAPTER VI +_Sleary’s Horsemanship_ 23 + CHAPTER VII +_Mrs. Sparsit_ 33 + CHAPTER VIII +_Never Wonder_ 38 + CHAPTER IX +_Sissy’s Progress_ 43 + CHAPTER X +_Stephen Blackpool_ 49 + CHAPTER XI +_No Way Out_ 53 + CHAPTER XII +_The Old Woman_ 59 + CHAPTER XIII +_Rachael_ 63 + CHAPTER XIV +_The Great Manufacturer_ 69 + CHAPTER XV +_Father and Daughter_ 73 + CHAPTER XVI +_Husband and Wife_ 79 + _BOOK THE SECOND_. _REAPING_ + CHAPTER I +_Effects in the Bank_ 84 + CHAPTER II +_Mr. James Harthouse_ 94 + CHAPTER III +_The Whelp_ 101 + CHAPTER IV +_Men and Brothers_ 111 + CHAPTER V +_Men and Masters_ 105 + CHAPTER VI +_Fading Away_ 116 + CHAPTER VII +_Gunpowder_ 126 + CHAPTER VIII +_Explosion_ 136 + CHAPTER IX +_Hearing the Last of it_ 146 + CHAPTER X +_Mrs. Sparsit’s Staircase_ 152 + CHAPTER XI +_Lower and Lower_ 156 + CHAPTER XII +_Down_ 163 + _BOOK THE THIRD_. _GARNERING_ + CHAPTER I +_Another Thing Needful_ 167 + CHAPTER II +_Very Ridiculous_ 172 + CHAPTER III +_Very Decided_ 179 + CHAPTER IV +_Lost_ 186 + CHAPTER V +_Found_ 193 + CHAPTER VI +_The Starlight_ 200 + CHAPTER VII +_Whelp-Hunting_ 208 + CHAPTER VIII +_Philosophical_ 216 + CHAPTER IX +_Final_ 222 + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE +_Stephen and Rachael in the Sick-room_ 64 +_Mr. Harthouse Dining at the Bounderbys’_ 100 +_Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the Garden_ 132 +_Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft_ 206 + + + + +BOOK THE FIRST +_SOWING_ + + +CHAPTER I +THE ONE THING NEEDFUL + + +‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but +Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out +everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon +Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the +principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle +on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’ + +The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the +speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring +every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis +was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his +eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two +dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the +speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was +helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and +dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which +bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the +wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of +a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts +stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square +legs, square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by +the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it +was,—all helped the emphasis. + +‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’ + +The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, +all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of +little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial +gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. + + + + +CHAPTER II +MURDERING THE INNOCENTS + + +THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and +calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are +four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for +anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily Thomas—Thomas +Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication +table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of +human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere +question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get +some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or +Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all +supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas +Gradgrind—no, sir! + +In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether +to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In +such terms, no doubt, substituting the words ‘boys and girls,’ for ‘sir,’ +Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers +before him, who were to be filled so full of facts. + +Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before +mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, +and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one +discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim +mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be +stormed away. + +‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his +square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’ + +‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and +curtseying. + +‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. +Call yourself Cecilia.’ + +‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl in a +trembling voice, and with another curtsey. + +‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he +mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’ + +‘He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his +hand. + +‘We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell us +about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?’ + +‘If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses +in the ring, sir.’ + +‘You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe +your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?’ + +‘Oh yes, sir.’ + +‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and +horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.’ + +(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) + +‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, for +the general behoof of all the little pitchers. ‘Girl number twenty +possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! +Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.’ + +The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, +perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, +darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely white-washed room, +irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of the +inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow +interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came +in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner +of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, +whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed to +receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone +upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same +rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. +His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of +lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something +paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair +might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead +and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, +that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. + +‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your definition of a horse.’ + +‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, +four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy +countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with +iron. Age known by marks in mouth.’ Thus (and much more) Bitzer. + +‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horse +is.’ + +She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could have +blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly +blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the +light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennæ +of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down +again. + +The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and +drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other +people’s too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with a +system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard +of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight all England. +To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the +scratch, wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly +customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right, +follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he +always fought All England) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He +was certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render that +unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from +high authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, when +Commissioners should reign upon earth. + +‘Very well,’ said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms. +‘That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper a +room with representations of horses?’ + +After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, ‘Yes, sir!’ +Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face that Yes was +wrong, cried out in chorus, ‘No, sir!’—as the custom is, in these +examinations. + +‘Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?’ + +A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, +ventured the answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but would +paint it. + +‘You _must_ paper it,’ said the gentleman, rather warmly. + +‘You must paper it,’ said Thomas Gradgrind, ‘whether you like it or not. +Don’t tell _us_ you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, boy?’ + +‘I’ll explain to you, then,’ said the gentleman, after another and a +dismal pause, ‘why you wouldn’t paper a room with representations of +horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in +reality—in fact? Do you?’ + +‘Yes, sir!’ from one half. ‘No, sir!’ from the other. + +‘Of course no,’ said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong +half. ‘Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don’t see in +fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What is +called Taste, is only another name for Fact.’ Thomas Gradgrind nodded +his approbation. + +‘This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,’ said the +gentleman. ‘Now, I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a +room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon +it?’ + +There being a general conviction by this time that ‘No, sir!’ was always +the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of NO was very strong. +Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe. + +‘Girl number twenty,’ said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of +knowledge. + +Sissy blushed, and stood up. + +‘So you would carpet your room—or your husband’s room, if you were a +grown woman, and had a husband—with representations of flowers, would +you?’ said the gentleman. ‘Why would you?’ + +‘If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,’ returned the girl. + +‘And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have +people walking over them with heavy boots?’ + +‘It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t crush and wither, if you +please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and +pleasant, and I would fancy—’ + +‘Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn’t fancy,’ cried the gentleman, quite elated +by coming so happily to his point. ‘That’s it! You are never to fancy.’ + +‘You are not, Cecilia Jupe,’ Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, ‘to do +anything of that kind.’ + +‘Fact, fact, fact!’ said the gentleman. And ‘Fact, fact, fact!’ repeated +Thomas Gradgrind. + +‘You are to be in all things regulated and governed,’ said the gentleman, +‘by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of +commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, +and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. +You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of +use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk +upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in +carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come and +perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds +and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going +up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. +You must use,’ said the gentleman, ‘for all these purposes, combinations +and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are +susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This +is fact. This is taste.’ + +The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as +if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded. + +‘Now, if Mr. M’Choakumchild,’ said the gentleman, ‘will proceed to give +his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request, +to observe his mode of procedure.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. ‘Mr. M’Choakumchild, we only wait for +you.’ + +So, Mr. M’Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred +and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, +in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte +legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had +answered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, +syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general +cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying +and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends +of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way into Her +Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council’s Schedule B, and had taken the +bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, +French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water Sheds +of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the +peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the +productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their +boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. Ah, +rather overdone, M’Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, +how infinitely better he might have taught much more! + +He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the +Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after +another, to see what they contained. Say, good M’Choakumchild. When +from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, +dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy +lurking within—or sometimes only maim him and distort him! + + + + +CHAPTER III +A LOOPHOLE + + +MR. GRADGRIND walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable +satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a model. He +intended every child in it to be a model—just as the young Gradgrinds +were all models. + +There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every one. They +had been lectured at, from their tenderest years; coursed, like little +hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, they had been made to run +to the lecture-room. The first object with which they had an +association, or of which they had a remembrance, was a large black board +with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it. + +Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an Ogre Fact +forbid! I only use the word to express a monster in a lecturing castle, +with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, taking childhood +captive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical dens by the hair. + +No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the +moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had ever +learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what +you are! No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on the subject, each +little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a +Professor Owen, and driven Charles’s Wain like a locomotive +engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field +with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who +worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet +more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those +celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous +ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. + +To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind +directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the wholesale hardware +trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for a +suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament. +Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within a mile or two of a great +town—called Coketown in the present faithful guide-book. + +A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not +the least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising fact in +the landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the +principal windows, as its master’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A +calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six windows on this +side of the door, six on that side; a total of twelve in this wing, a +total of twelve in the other wing; four-and-twenty carried over to the +back wings. A lawn and garden and an infant avenue, all ruled straight +like a botanical account-book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and +water-service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, +fire-proof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with +all their brushes and brooms; everything that heart could desire. + +Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had cabinets in +various departments of science too. They had a little conchological +cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical +cabinet; and the specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits +of stone and ore looked as though they might have been broken from the +parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments their own names; +and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found +his way into their nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at +more than this, what was it for good gracious goodness’ sake, that the +greedy little Gradgrinds grasped it! + +Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. He was +an affectionate father, after his manner; but he would probably have +described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a +definition) as ‘an eminently practical’ father. He had a particular +pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was considered to have a +special application to him. Whatsoever the public meeting held in +Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was +sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his eminently practical friend +Gradgrind. This always pleased the eminently practical friend. He knew +it to be his due, but his due was acceptable. + +He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which +was neither town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, when his ears +were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing and banging band +attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its +rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating from the +summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was ‘Sleary’s +Horse-riding’ which claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout +modern statue with a money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche +of early Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as +some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then +inaugurating the entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean +flower-act. Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders +which must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to +‘elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing +dog Merrylegs.’ He was also to exhibit ‘his astounding feat of throwing +seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, +thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before +attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such +rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.’ +The same Signor Jupe was to ‘enliven the varied performances at frequent +intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.’ Lastly, he was +to wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr. William +Button, of Tooley Street, in ‘the highly novel and laughable +hippo-comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to Brentford.’ + +Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed +on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects +from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction. But, +the turning of the road took him by the back of the booth, and at the +back of the booth a number of children were congregated in a number of +stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the +place. + +This brought him to a stop. ‘Now, to think of these vagabonds,’ said he, +‘attracting the young rabble from a model school.’ + +A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and the young +rabble, he took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to look for any child +he knew by name, and might order off. Phenomenon almost incredible +though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but his own metallurgical +Louisa, peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and +his own mathematical Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a +hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act! + +Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family +was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said: + +‘Louisa!! Thomas!!’ + +Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked at her father with +more boldness than Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas did not look at him, but +gave himself up to be taken home like a machine. + +‘In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, leading +each away by a hand; ‘what do you do here?’ + +‘Wanted to see what it was like,’ returned Louisa, shortly. + +‘What it was like?’ + +‘Yes, father.’ + +There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in +the girl: yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there +was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a +starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its +expression. Not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with +uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something painful in them, +analogous to the changes on a blind face groping its way. + +She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day would +seem to become a woman all at once. Her father thought so as he looked +at her. She was pretty. Would have been self-willed (he thought in his +eminently practical way) but for her bringing-up. + +‘Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it difficult to believe +that you, with your education and resources, should have brought your +sister to a scene like this.’ + +‘I brought _him_, father,’ said Louisa, quickly. ‘I asked him to come.’ + +‘I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to hear it. It makes +Thomas no better, and it makes you worse, Louisa.’ + +She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down her cheek. + +‘You! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; Thomas +and you, who may be said to be replete with facts; Thomas and you, who +have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here!’ cried +Mr. Gradgrind. ‘In this degraded position! I am amazed.’ + +‘I was tired, father. I have been tired a long time,’ said Louisa. + +‘Tired? Of what?’ asked the astonished father. + +‘I don’t know of what—of everything, I think.’ + +‘Say not another word,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘You are childish. I +will hear no more.’ He did not speak again until they had walked some +half-a-mile in silence, when he gravely broke out with: ‘What would your +best friends say, Louisa? Do you attach no value to their good opinion? +What would Mr. Bounderby say?’ At the mention of this name, his daughter +stole a look at him, remarkable for its intense and searching character. +He saw nothing of it, for before he looked at her, she had again cast +down her eyes! + +‘What,’ he repeated presently, ‘would Mr. Bounderby say?’ All the way to +Stone Lodge, as with grave indignation he led the two delinquents home, +he repeated at intervals ‘What would Mr. Bounderby say?’—as if Mr. +Bounderby had been Mrs. Grundy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV +MR. BOUNDERBY + + +NOT being Mrs. Grundy, who _was_ Mr. Bounderby? + +Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind’s bosom friend, as a +man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach that spiritual +relationship towards another man perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near +was Mr. Bounderby—or, if the reader should prefer it, so far off. + +He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, +loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse +material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A +man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, +and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes +open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him +of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could +never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always +proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his +old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility. + +A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr. Bounderby +looked older; his seven or eight and forty might have had the seven or +eight added to it again, without surprising anybody. He had not much +hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was +left, all standing up in disorder, was in that condition from being +constantly blown about by his windy boastfulness. + +In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing on the hearthrug, +warming himself before the fire, Mr. Bounderby delivered some +observations to Mrs. Gradgrind on the circumstance of its being his +birthday. He stood before the fire, partly because it was a cool spring +afternoon, though the sun shone; partly because the shade of Stone Lodge +was always haunted by the ghost of damp mortar; partly because he thus +took up a commanding position, from which to subdue Mrs. Gradgrind. + +‘I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn’t know such a +thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a pigsty. +That’s the way I spent my tenth birthday. Not that a ditch was new to +me, for I was born in a ditch.’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, of +surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking physic +without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to +life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on +her; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped it was a dry ditch? + +‘No! As wet as a sop. A foot of water in it,’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Enough to give a baby cold,’ Mrs. Gradgrind considered. + +‘Cold? I was born with inflammation of the lungs, and of everything +else, I believe, that was capable of inflammation,’ returned Mr. +Bounderby. ‘For years, ma’am, I was one of the most miserable little +wretches ever seen. I was so sickly, that I was always moaning and +groaning. I was so ragged and dirty, that you wouldn’t have touched me +with a pair of tongs.’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the most appropriate thing +her imbecility could think of doing. + +‘How I fought through it, _I_ don’t know,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was +determined, I suppose. I have been a determined character in later life, +and I suppose I was then. Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody +to thank for my being here, but myself.’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped that his mother— + +‘_My_ mother? Bolted, ma’am!’ said Bounderby. + +Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave it up. + +‘My mother left me to my grandmother,’ said Bounderby; ‘and, according to +the best of my remembrance, my grandmother was the wickedest and the +worst old woman that ever lived. If I got a little pair of shoes by any +chance, she would take ’em off and sell ’em for drink. Why, I have known +that grandmother of mine lie in her bed and drink her four-teen glasses +of liquor before breakfast!’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no other sign of vitality, +looked (as she always did) like an indifferently executed transparency of +a small female figure, without enough light behind it. + +‘She kept a chandler’s shop,’ pursued Bounderby, ‘and kept me in an +egg-box. That was the cot of _my_ infancy; an old egg-box. As soon as I +was big enough to run away, of course I ran away. Then I became a young +vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, +everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; +they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an +incumbrance, and a pest. I know that very well.’ + +His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great social +distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest, was only to +be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast. + +‘I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. Whether I was to +do it or not, ma’am, I did it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw +me out a rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, vagabond, labourer, porter, clerk, +chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Those are +the antecedents, and the culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown +learnt his letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and +was first able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the +steeple clock of St. Giles’s Church, London, under the direction of a +drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible vagrant. +Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and your +model schools, and your training schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish +of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all +right, all correct—he hadn’t such advantages—but let us have hard-headed, +solid-fisted people—the education that made him won’t do for everybody, +he knows well—such and such his education was, however, and you may force +him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the +facts of his life.’ + +Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown +stopped. He stopped just as his eminently practical friend, still +accompanied by the two young culprits, entered the room. His eminently +practical friend, on seeing him, stopped also, and gave Louisa a +reproachful look that plainly said, ‘Behold your Bounderby!’ + +‘Well!’ blustered Mr. Bounderby, ‘what’s the matter? What is young +Thomas in the dumps about?’ + +He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa. + +‘We were peeping at the circus,’ muttered Louisa, haughtily, without +lifting up her eyes, ‘and father caught us.’ + +‘And, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband in a lofty manner, ‘I should as +soon have expected to find my children reading poetry.’ + +‘Dear me,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘How can you, Louisa and Thomas! I +wonder at you. I declare you’re enough to make one regret ever having +had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I hadn’t. _Then_ +what would you have done, I should like to know?’ + +Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent remarks. +He frowned impatiently. + +‘As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn’t go and +look at the shells and minerals and things provided for you, instead of +circuses!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘You know, as well as I do, no young +people have circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or attend +lectures about circuses. What can you possibly want to know of circuses +then? I am sure you have enough to do, if that’s what you want. With my +head in its present state, I couldn’t remember the mere names of half the +facts you have got to attend to.’ + +‘That’s the reason!’ pouted Louisa. + +‘Don’t tell me that’s the reason, because it can’t be nothing of the +sort,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘Go and be somethingological directly.’ +Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and usually dismissed her +children to their studies with this general injunction to choose their +pursuit. + +In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind’s stock of facts in general was woefully +defective; but Mr. Gradgrind in raising her to her high matrimonial +position, had been influenced by two reasons. Firstly, she was most +satisfactory as a question of figures; and, secondly, she had ‘no +nonsense’ about her. By nonsense he meant fancy; and truly it is +probable she was as free from any alloy of that nature, as any human +being not arrived at the perfection of an absolute idiot, ever was. + +The simple circumstance of being left alone with her husband and Mr. +Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this admirable lady again without +collision between herself and any other fact. So, she once more died +away, and nobody minded her. + +‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair to the fireside, ‘you +are always so interested in my young people—particularly in Louisa—that I +make no apology for saying to you, I am very much vexed by this +discovery. I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) to the +education of the reason of my family. The reason is (as you know) the +only faculty to which education should be addressed. ‘And yet, +Bounderby, it would appear from this unexpected circumstance of to-day, +though in itself a trifling one, as if something had crept into Thomas’s +and Louisa’s minds which is—or rather, which is not—I don’t know that I +can express myself better than by saying—which has never been intended to +be developed, and in which their reason has no part.’ + +‘There certainly is no reason in looking with interest at a parcel of +vagabonds,’ returned Bounderby. ‘When I was a vagabond myself, nobody +looked with any interest at _me_; I know that.’ + +‘Then comes the question; said the eminently practical father, with his +eyes on the fire, ‘in what has this vulgar curiosity its rise?’ + +‘I’ll tell you in what. In idle imagination.’ + +‘I hope not,’ said the eminently practical; ‘I confess, however, that the +misgiving _has_ crossed me on my way home.’ + +‘In idle imagination, Gradgrind,’ repeated Bounderby. ‘A very bad thing +for anybody, but a cursed bad thing for a girl like Louisa. I should ask +Mrs. Gradgrind’s pardon for strong expressions, but that she knows very +well I am not a refined character. Whoever expects refinement in _me_ +will be disappointed. I hadn’t a refined bringing up.’ + +‘Whether,’ said Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in his pockets, and +his cavernous eyes on the fire, ‘whether any instructor or servant can +have suggested anything? Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been reading +anything? Whether, in spite of all precautions, any idle story-book can +have got into the house? Because, in minds that have been practically +formed by rule and line, from the cradle upwards, this is so curious, so +incomprehensible.’ + +‘Stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby, who all this time had been standing, as +before, on the hearth, bursting at the very furniture of the room with +explosive humility. ‘You have one of those strollers’ children in the +school.’ + +‘Cecilia Jupe, by name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, with something of a stricken +look at his friend. + +‘Now, stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby again. ‘How did she come there?’ + +‘Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first time, only just +now. She specially applied here at the house to be admitted, as not +regularly belonging to our town, and—yes, you are right, Bounderby, you +are right.’ + +‘Now, stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby, once more. ‘Louisa saw her when she +came?’ + +‘Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the application to me. +But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, in Mrs. Gradgrind’s presence.’ + +‘Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, ‘what passed?’ + +‘Oh, my poor health!’ returned Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘The girl wanted to come +to the school, and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come to the school, and +Louisa and Thomas both said that the girl wanted to come, and that Mr. +Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it possible to contradict +them when such was the fact!’ + +‘Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Turn this girl to +the right about, and there’s an end of it.’ + +‘I am much of your opinion.’ + +‘Do it at once,’ said Bounderby, ‘has always been my motto from a child. +When I thought I would run away from my egg-box and my grandmother, I did +it at once. Do you the same. Do this at once!’ + +‘Are you walking?’ asked his friend. ‘I have the father’s address. +Perhaps you would not mind walking to town with me?’ + +‘Not the least in the world,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘as long as you do it +at once!’ + +So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat—he always threw it on, as expressing a +man who had been far too busily employed in making himself, to acquire +any fashion of wearing his hat—and with his hands in his pockets, +sauntered out into the hall. ‘I never wear gloves,’ it was his custom to +say. ‘I didn’t climb up the ladder in _them_.—Shouldn’t be so high up, +if I had.’ + +Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. Gradgrind +went up-stairs for the address, he opened the door of the children’s +study and looked into that serene floor-clothed apartment, which, +notwithstanding its book-cases and its cabinets and its variety of +learned and philosophical appliances, had much of the genial aspect of a +room devoted to hair-cutting. Louisa languidly leaned upon the window +looking out, without looking at anything, while young Thomas stood +sniffing revengefully at the fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger +Gradgrinds, were out at lecture in custody; and little Jane, after +manufacturing a good deal of moist pipe-clay on her face with +slate-pencil and tears, had fallen asleep over vulgar fractions. + +‘It’s all right now, Louisa: it’s all right, young Thomas,’ said Mr. +Bounderby; ‘you won’t do so any more. I’ll answer for it’s being all +over with father. Well, Louisa, that’s worth a kiss, isn’t it?’ + +‘You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,’ returned Louisa, when she had coldly +paused, and slowly walked across the room, and ungraciously raised her +cheek towards him, with her face turned away. + +‘Always my pet; ain’t you, Louisa?’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Good-bye, +Louisa!’ + +He went his way, but she stood on the same spot, rubbing the cheek he had +kissed, with her handkerchief, until it was burning red. She was still +doing this, five minutes afterwards. + +‘What are you about, Loo?’ her brother sulkily remonstrated. ‘You’ll rub +a hole in your face.’ + +‘You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you like, Tom. I +wouldn’t cry!’ + + + + +CHAPTER V +THE KEYNOTE + + +COKETOWN, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a +triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. +Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing +our tune. + +It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the +smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of +unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town +of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of +smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It +had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling +dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a +rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the +steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an +elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large +streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like +one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went +in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same +pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as +yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and +the next. + +These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work +by which it was sustained; against them were to be set off, comforts of +life which found their way all over the world, and elegancies of life +which made, we will not ask how much of the fine lady, who could scarcely +bear to hear the place mentioned. The rest of its features were +voluntary, and they were these. + +You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the +members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there—as the members of +eighteen religious persuasions had done—they made it a pious warehouse of +red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamental +examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top of it. The solitary exception +was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the +door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All +the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe +characters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, +the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been +either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the +contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, +everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, +everywhere in the immaterial. The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, +and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master +and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in +hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or +show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the +dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen. + +A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, of course +got on well? Why no, not quite well. No? Dear me! + +No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all respects like +gold that had stood the fire. First, the perplexing mystery of the place +was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations? Because, whoever did, +the labouring people did not. It was very strange to walk through the +streets on a Sunday morning, and note how few of _them_ the barbarous +jangling of bells that was driving the sick and nervous mad, called away +from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners of +their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing at all the +church and chapel going, as at a thing with which they had no manner of +concern. Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this, because there +was a native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be +heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning +for acts of parliament that should make these people religious by main +force. Then came the Teetotal Society, who complained that these same +people _would_ get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that they did +get drunk, and proved at tea parties that no inducement, human or Divine +(except a medal), would induce them to forego their custom of getting +drunk. Then came the chemist and druggist, with other tabular +statements, showing that when they didn’t get drunk, they took opium. +Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail, with more tabular +statements, outdoing all the previous tabular statements, and showing +that the same people _would_ resort to low haunts, hidden from the public +eye, where they heard low singing and saw low dancing, and mayhap joined +in it; and where A. B., aged twenty-four next birthday, and committed for +eighteen months’ solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever shown +himself particularly worthy of belief) his ruin began, as he was +perfectly sure and confident that otherwise he would have been a tip-top +moral specimen. Then came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two +gentlemen at this present moment walking through Coketown, and both +eminently practical, who could, on occasion, furnish more tabular +statements derived from their own personal experience, and illustrated by +cases they had known and seen, from which it clearly appeared—in short, +it was the only clear thing in the case—that these same people were a bad +lot altogether, gentlemen; that do what you would for them they were +never thankful for it, gentlemen; that they were restless, gentlemen; +that they never knew what they wanted; that they lived upon the best, and +bought fresh butter; and insisted on Mocha coffee, and rejected all but +prime parts of meat, and yet were eternally dissatisfied and +unmanageable. In short, it was the moral of the old nursery fable: + + There was an old woman, and what do you think? + She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; + Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet, + And yet this old woman would NEVER be quiet. + +Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between the case of +the Coketown population and the case of the little Gradgrinds? Surely, +none of us in our sober senses and acquainted with figures, are to be +told at this time of day, that one of the foremost elements in the +existence of the Coketown working-people had been for scores of years, +deliberately set at nought? That there was any Fancy in them demanding +to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in +convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they worked long and +monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical relief—some +relaxation, encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a +vent—some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a +stirring band of music—some occasional light pie in which even +M’Choakumchild had no finger—which craving must and would be satisfied +aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, until the laws of the +Creation were repealed? + +‘This man lives at Pod’s End, and I don’t quite know Pod’s End,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘Which is it, Bounderby?’ + +Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, but knew no more +respecting it. So they stopped for a moment, looking about. + +Almost as they did so, there came running round the corner of the street +at a quick pace and with a frightened look, a girl whom Mr. Gradgrind +recognized. ‘Halloa!’ said he. ‘Stop! Where are you going! Stop!’ +Girl number twenty stopped then, palpitating, and made him a curtsey. + +‘Why are you tearing about the streets,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘in this +improper manner?’ + +‘I was—I was run after, sir,’ the girl panted, ‘and I wanted to get +away.’ + +‘Run after?’ repeated Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Who would run after _you_?’ + +The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for her, by the +colourless boy, Bitzer, who came round the corner with such blind speed +and so little anticipating a stoppage on the pavement, that he brought +himself up against Mr. Gradgrind’s waistcoat and rebounded into the road. + +‘What do you mean, boy?’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘What are you doing? How +dare you dash against—everybody—in this manner?’ Bitzer picked up his +cap, which the concussion had knocked off; and backing, and knuckling his +forehead, pleaded that it was an accident. + +‘Was this boy running after you, Jupe?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Yes, sir,’ said the girl reluctantly. + +‘No, I wasn’t, sir!’ cried Bitzer. ‘Not till she run away from me. But +the horse-riders never mind what they say, sir; they’re famous for it. +You know the horse-riders are famous for never minding what they say,’ +addressing Sissy. ‘It’s as well known in the town as—please, sir, as the +multiplication table isn’t known to the horse-riders.’ Bitzer tried Mr. +Bounderby with this. + +‘He frightened me so,’ said the girl, ‘with his cruel faces!’ + +‘Oh!’ cried Bitzer. ‘Oh! An’t you one of the rest! An’t you a +horse-rider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her if she would know +how to define a horse to-morrow, and offered to tell her again, and she +ran away, and I ran after her, sir, that she might know how to answer +when she was asked. You wouldn’t have thought of saying such mischief if +you hadn’t been a horse-rider?’ + +‘Her calling seems to be pretty well known among ’em,’ observed Mr. +Bounderby. ‘You’d have had the whole school peeping in a row, in a +week.’ + +‘Truly, I think so,’ returned his friend. ‘Bitzer, turn you about and +take yourself home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let me hear of your +running in this manner any more, boy, and you will hear of me through the +master of the school. You understand what I mean. Go along.’ + +The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead again, +glanced at Sissy, turned about, and retreated. + +‘Now, girl,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘take this gentleman and me to your +father’s; we are going there. What have you got in that bottle you are +carrying?’ + +‘Gin,’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Dear, no, sir! It’s the nine oils.’ + +‘The what?’ cried Mr. Bounderby. + +‘The nine oils, sir, to rub father with.’ + +‘Then,’ said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud short laugh, ‘what the devil do +you rub your father with nine oils for?’ + +‘It’s what our people aways use, sir, when they get any hurts in the +ring,’ replied the girl, looking over her shoulder, to assure herself +that her pursuer was gone. ‘They bruise themselves very bad sometimes.’ + +‘Serve ’em right,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘for being idle.’ She glanced up +at his face, with mingled astonishment and dread. + +‘By George!’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘when I was four or five years younger +than you, I had worse bruises upon me than ten oils, twenty oils, forty +oils, would have rubbed off. I didn’t get ’em by posture-making, but by +being banged about. There was no rope-dancing for me; I danced on the +bare ground and was larruped with the rope.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so rough a man as Mr. +Bounderby. His character was not unkind, all things considered; it might +have been a very kind one indeed, if he had only made some round mistake +in the arithmetic that balanced it, years ago. He said, in what he meant +for a reassuring tone, as they turned down a narrow road, ‘And this is +Pod’s End; is it, Jupe?’ + +‘This is it, sir, and—if you wouldn’t mind, sir—this is the house.’ + +She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little public-house, with +dim red lights in it. As haggard and as shabby, as if, for want of +custom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had gone the way all +drunkards go, and was very near the end of it. + +‘It’s only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you wouldn’t +mind, and waiting there for a moment till I get a candle. If you should +hear a dog, sir, it’s only Merrylegs, and he only barks.’ + +‘Merrylegs and nine oils, eh!’ said Mr. Bounderby, entering last with his +metallic laugh. ‘Pretty well this, for a self-made man!’ + + + + +CHAPTER VI +SLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIP + + +THE name of the public-house was the Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs +might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse +upon the sign-board, the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in Roman letters. +Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had +touched off the lines: + + Good malt makes good beer, + Walk in, and they’ll draw it here; + Good wine makes good brandy, + Give us a call, and you’ll find it handy. + +Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was another +Pegasus—a theatrical one—with real gauze let in for his wings, golden +stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk. + +As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had not +grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. +Bounderby received no offence from these idealities. They followed the +girl up some steep corner-stairs without meeting any one, and stopped in +the dark while she went on for a candle. They expected every moment to +hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not +barked when the girl and the candle appeared together. + +‘Father is not in our room, sir,’ she said, with a face of great +surprise. ‘If you wouldn’t mind walking in, I’ll find him directly.’ +They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away with +a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily furnished room, with a bed +in it. The white night-cap, embellished with two peacock’s feathers and +a pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon +enlivened the varied performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and +retorts, hung upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other +token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to +Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal who +went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut out of it, for any +sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the Pegasus’s Arms. + +They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy went +from one to another in quest of her father; and presently they heard +voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in a great +hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it empty, and +looked round with her hands clasped and her face full of terror. + +‘Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don’t know why he +should go there, but he must be there; I’ll bring him in a minute!’ She +was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair +streaming behind her. + +‘What does she mean!’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Back in a minute? It’s more +than a mile off.’ + +Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door, and +introducing himself with the words, ‘By your leaves, gentlemen!’ walked +in with his hands in his pockets. His face, close-shaven, thin, and +sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, brushed into a roll +all round his head, and parted up the centre. His legs were very robust, +but shorter than legs of good proportions should have been. His chest +and back were as much too broad, as his legs were too short. He was +dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl +round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, +and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of +the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended, +nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned +in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated +for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the North American +Prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with an old +face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried +upside down over his father’s shoulder, by one foot, and held by the +crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father’s hand, +according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be +observed to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, +white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so +pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the maternal part +of the spectators; but in private, where his characteristics were a +precocious cutaway coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of the +Turf, turfy. + +‘By your leaves, gentlemen,’ said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing round +the room. ‘It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe!’ + +‘It was,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I +can’t wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with +you.’ + +‘You see, my friend,’ Mr. Bounderby put in, ‘we are the kind of people +who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people who don’t know +the value of time.’ + +‘I have not,’ retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head to +foot, ‘the honour of knowing _you_,—but if you mean that you can make +more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your +appearance, that you are about right.’ + +‘And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think,’ said +Cupid. + +‘Kidderminster, stow that!’ said Mr. Childers. (Master Kidderminster was +Cupid’s mortal name.) + +‘What does he come here cheeking us for, then?’ cried Master +Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. ‘If you want to +cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.’ + +‘Kidderminster,’ said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, ‘stow that!—Sir,’ +to Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I was addressing myself to you. You may or you may +not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that +Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.’ + +‘Has—what has he missed?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the potent +Bounderby for assistance. + +‘Missed his tip.’ + +‘Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done ’em once,’ +said Master Kidderminster. ‘Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was +loose in his ponging.’ + +‘Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in his +tumbling,’ Mr. Childers interpreted. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is tip, is it?’ + +‘In a general way that’s missing his tip,’ Mr. E. W. B. Childers +answered. + +‘Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, eh!’ +ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. ‘Queer sort of company, +too, for a man who has raised himself!’ + +‘Lower yourself, then,’ retorted Cupid. ‘Oh Lord! if you’ve raised +yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.’ + +‘This is a very obtrusive lad!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting +his brows on him. + +‘We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you were +coming,’ retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. ‘It’s a pity +you don’t have a bespeak, being so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff, +ain’t you?’ + +‘What does this unmannerly boy mean,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in +a sort of desperation, ‘by Tight-Jeff?’ + +‘There! Get out, get out!’ said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend +from the room, rather in the prairie manner. ‘Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, +it don’t much signify: it’s only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were +going to give me a message for Jupe?’ + +‘Yes, I was.’ + +‘Then,’ continued Mr. Childers, quickly, ‘my opinion is, he will never +receive it. Do you know much of him?’ + +‘I never saw the man in my life.’ + +‘I doubt if you ever _will_ see him now. It’s pretty plain to me, he’s +off.’ + +‘Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?’ + +‘Ay! I mean,’ said Mr. Childers, with a nod, ‘that he has cut. He was +goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed +to-day. He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he +can’t stand it.’ + +‘Why has he been—so very much—Goosed?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the +word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance. + +‘His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,’ said Childers. +‘He has his points as a Cackler still, but he can’t get a living out of +_them_.’ + +‘A Cackler!’ Bounderby repeated. ‘Here we go again!’ + +‘A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,’ said Mr. E. W. B. +Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his shoulder, +and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair—which all shook at +once. ‘Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper, to +know that his daughter knew of his being goosed, than to go through with +it.’ + +‘Good!’ interrupted Mr. Bounderby. ‘This is good, Gradgrind! A man so +fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her! This is devilish good! +Ha! ha! Now, I’ll tell you what, young man. I haven’t always occupied +my present station of life. I know what these things are. You may be +astonished to hear it, but my mother—ran away from _me_.’ + +E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all astonished to +hear it. + +‘Very well,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was born in a ditch, and my mother ran +away from me. Do I excuse her for it? No. Have I ever excused her for +it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her probably the very +worst woman that ever lived in the world, except my drunken grandmother. +There’s no family pride about me, there’s no imaginative sentimental +humbug about me. I call a spade a spade; and I call the mother of Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or any favour, what I should call +her if she had been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So, with this +man. He is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that’s what he is, in +English.’ + +‘It’s all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in English +or whether in French,’ retorted Mr. E. W. B. Childers, facing about. ‘I +am telling your friend what’s the fact; if you don’t like to hear it, you +can avail yourself of the open air. You give it mouth enough, you do; +but give it mouth in your own building at least,’ remonstrated E. W. B. +with stern irony. ‘Don’t give it mouth in this building, till you’re +called upon. You have got some building of your own I dare say, now?’ + +‘Perhaps so,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his money and laughing. + +‘Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?’ said +Childers. ‘Because this isn’t a strong building, and too much of you +might bring it down!’ + +Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him, as from +a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was +seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes, and a bundle tied +up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will never believe it of him, +but he has cut away and left her.’ + +‘Pray,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘why will she never believe it of him?’ + +‘Because those two were one. Because they were never asunder. Because, +up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her,’ said Childers, taking a +step or two to look into the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and Master +Kidderminster walked in a curious manner; with their legs wider apart +than the general run of men, and with a very knowing assumption of being +stiff in the knees. This walk was common to all the male members of +Sleary’s company, and was understood to express, that they were always on +horseback. + +‘Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her,’ said Childers, giving +his hair another shake, as he looked up from the empty box. ‘Now, he +leaves her without anything to take to.’ + +‘It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to express +that opinion,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly. + +‘_I_ never apprenticed? I was apprenticed when I was seven year old.’ + +‘Oh! Indeed?’ said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having been +defrauded of his good opinion. ‘I was not aware of its being the custom +to apprentice young persons to—’ + +‘Idleness,’ Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. ‘No, by the Lord +Harry! Nor I!’ + +‘Her father always had it in his head,’ resumed Childers, feigning +unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby’s existence, ‘that she was to be taught +the deuce-and-all of education. How it got into his head, I can’t say; I +can only say that it never got out. He has been picking up a bit of +reading for her, here—and a bit of writing for her, there—and a bit of +ciphering for her, somewhere else—these seven years.’ + +Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, stroked +his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal of doubt and a little +hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the first he had sought to conciliate that +gentleman, for the sake of the deserted girl. + +‘When Sissy got into the school here,’ he pursued, ‘her father was as +pleased as Punch. I couldn’t altogether make out why, myself, as we were +not stationary here, being but comers and goers anywhere. I suppose, +however, he had this move in his mind—he was always half-cracked—and then +considered her provided for. If you should happen to have looked in +to-night, for the purpose of telling him that you were going to do her +any little service,’ said Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and +repeating his look, ‘it would be very fortunate and well-timed; very +fortunate and well-timed.’ + +‘On the contrary,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘I came to tell him that her +connections made her not an object for the school, and that she must not +attend any more. Still, if her father really has left her, without any +connivance on her part—Bounderby, let me have a word with you.’ + +Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his equestrian +walk, to the landing outside the door, and there stood stroking his face, +and softly whistling. While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in +Mr. Bounderby’s voice as ‘No. _I_ say no. I advise you not. I say by +no means.’ While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he heard in his much lower tone +the words, ‘But even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which +has been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in. Think +of it, Bounderby, in that point of view.’ + +Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary’s company gradually gathered +together from the upper regions, where they were quartered, and, from +standing about, talking in low voices to one another and to Mr. Childers, +gradually insinuated themselves and him into the room. There were two or +three handsome young women among them, with their two or three husbands, +and their two or three mothers, and their eight or nine little children, +who did the fairy business when required. The father of one of the +families was in the habit of balancing the father of another of the +families on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often +made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the +apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling +casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand-basins, +ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing. All the +mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire and the tight-rope, +and perform rapid acts on bare-backed steeds; none of them were at all +particular in respect of showing their legs; and one of them, alone in a +Greek chariot, drove six in hand into every town they came to. They all +assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their +private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic +arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have +produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable +gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for +any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity +one another, deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much +generous construction, as the every-day virtues of any class of people in +the world. + +Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, with +one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like +the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a +muddled head which was never sober and never drunk. + +‘Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose +breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s, ‘Your thervant! +Thith ith a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith. You’ve heard of my Clown +and hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?’ + +He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered ‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, Thquire,’ he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining +with his pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside for the purpose. ‘Ith +it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?’ + +‘I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. + +‘Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any +more than I want to thtand in her way. I’m willing to take her prentith, +though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and +not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me; but if you’d been chilled and +heated, heated and chilled, chilled and heated in the ring when you wath +young, ath often ath I have been, _your_ voithe wouldn’t have lathted +out, Thquire, no more than mine.’ + +‘I dare say not,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? Give it +a name, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease. + +‘Nothing for me, I thank you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you +haven’t took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.’ + +Here his daughter Josephine—a pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who +had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve, +which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire +to be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies—cried, ‘Father, hush! +she has come back!’ Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she +had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their +looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and +took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady +(herself in the family-way), who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, +and to weep over her. + +‘Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,’ said Sleary. + +‘O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You are gone +to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for my sake, I am +sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor +father, until you come back!’ It was so pathetic to hear her saying many +things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched +out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it, +that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the +case in hand. + +‘Now, good people all,’ said he, ‘this is wanton waste of time. Let the +girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have +been run away from, myself. Here, what’s your name! Your father has +absconded—deserted you—and you mustn’t expect to see him again as long as +you live.’ + +They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that +advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being +impressed by the speaker’s strong common sense, they took it in +extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered ‘Shame!’ and the women ‘Brute!’ +and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following hint, apart to Mr. +Bounderby. + +‘I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that +you had better cut it thort, and drop it. They’re a very good natur’d +people, my people, but they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their +movementh; and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m damned if I don’t +believe they’ll pith you out o’ winder.’ + +Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind +found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject. + +‘It is of no moment,’ said he, ‘whether this person is to be expected +back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and there is no +present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is agreed on all +hands.’ + +‘Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to that!’ From Sleary. + +‘Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl, +Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in +consequence of there being practical objections, into which I need not +enter, to the reception there of the children of persons so employed, am +prepared in these altered circumstances to make a proposal. I am willing +to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you. +The only condition (over and above your good behaviour) I make is, that +you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also, +that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no +more with any of your friends who are here present. These observations +comprise the whole of the case.’ + +‘At the thame time,’ said Sleary, ‘I mutht put in my word, Thquire, tho +that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. If you like, +Thethilia, to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work and you know +your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you’re a lying at prethent, +would be a mother to you, and Joth’phine would be a thithter to you. I +don’t pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and I don’t thay but what, +when you mith’d your tip, you’d find me cut up rough, and thwear an oath +or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad +tempered, I never did a horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at +him went, and that I don’t expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of +life, with a rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, Thquire, and I have +thed my thay.’ + +The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who +received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked: + +‘The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of influencing +your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound practical +education, and that even your father himself (from what I understand) +appears, on your behalf, to have known and felt that much.’ + +The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her wild +crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned her face +full upon her patron. The whole company perceived the force of the +change, and drew a long breath together, that plainly said, ‘she will +go!’ + +‘Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,’ Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; ‘I +say no more. Be sure you know your own mind!’ + +‘When father comes back,’ cried the girl, bursting into tears again after +a minute’s silence, ‘how will he ever find me if I go away!’ + +‘You may be quite at ease,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked out the +whole matter like a sum: ‘you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score. +In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr.—’ + +‘Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed of it. Known all over +England, and alwayth paythe ith way.’ + +‘Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went. I +should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and he would have +no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown. +I am well known.’ + +‘Well known,’ assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye. ‘You’re one of +the thort, Thquire, that keepth a prethiouth thight of money out of the +houthe. But never mind that at prethent.’ + +There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands +before her face, ‘Oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me +go away before I break my heart!’ + +The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together—it was +soon done, for they were not many—and to pack them in a basket which had +often travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time upon the ground, still +sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby +stood near the door, ready to take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the +middle of the room, with the male members of the company about him, +exactly as he would have stood in the centre of the ring during his +daughter Josephine’s performance. He wanted nothing but his whip. + +The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and +smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. Then they pressed about +her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing +her: and brought the children to take leave of her; and were a +tender-hearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether. + +‘Now, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘If you are quite determined, come!’ + +But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company yet, and +every one of them had to unfold his arms (for they all assumed the +professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary), and give +her a parting kiss—Master Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature +there was an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to +have harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary +was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide he took her by both +her hands, and would have sprung her up and down, after the riding-master +manner of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid +act; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before him +crying. + +‘Good-bye, my dear!’ said Sleary. ‘You’ll make your fortun, I hope, and +none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll pound it. I with +your father hadn’t taken hith dog with him; ith a ill-conwenienth to have +the dog out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn’t have +performed without hith mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!’ + +With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his +company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to +Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse. + +‘There the ith, Thquire,’ he said, sweeping her with a professional +glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, ‘and the’ll do you +juthtithe. Good-bye, Thethilia!’ + +‘Good-bye, Cecilia!’ ‘Good-bye, Sissy!’ ‘God bless you, dear!’ In a +variety of voices from all the room. + +But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in her +bosom, and he now interposed with ‘Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large +to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me!’ + +‘No, no!’ she said, in another burst of tears. ‘Oh, no! Pray let me +keep it for father till he comes back! He will want it when he comes +back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me for it. I +must keep it for him, if you please!’ + +‘Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell, +Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth of +your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, +when you’re grown up and married and well off, you come upon any +horthe-riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, give +it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do wurth. People mutht be +amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than +ever, by so much talking; ‘they can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they +can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. +I’ve got my living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I +conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to +you, Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!’ + +The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and the +fixed eye of Philosophy—and its rolling eye, too—soon lost the three +figures and the basket in the darkness of the street. + + + + +CHAPTER VII +MRS. SPARSIT + + +MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his +establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs. +Sparsit was this lady’s name; and she was a prominent figure in +attendance on Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with the +Bully of humility inside. + +For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly +connected. She had a great aunt living in these very times called Lady +Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by +the mother’s side what Mrs. Sparsit still called ‘a Powler.’ Strangers +of limited information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed not +to know what a Powler was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might +be a business, or a political party, or a profession of faith. The +better class of minds, however, did not need to be informed that the +Powlers were an ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly +far back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost +themselves—which they had rather frequently done, as respected +horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the +Insolvent Debtors’ Court. + +The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother’s side a Powler, married this +lady, being by the father’s side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely +fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher’s meat, and a +mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen +years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, +and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long +slim props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning. He inherited a +fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it all before he came into it, and +spent it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at +twenty-four (the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he +did not leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after the +honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen years +older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, Lady +Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and partly to maintain +herself, went out at a salary. And here she was now, in her elderly +days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows +which had captivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bounderby’s tea as he took his +breakfast. + +If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess +whom he took about as a feature in his state-processions, he could not +have made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it +belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it +belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the measure that he would not +allow his own youth to have been attended by a single favourable +circumstance, he brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s juvenile career with every +possible advantage, and showered waggon-loads of early roses all over +that lady’s path. ‘And yet, sir,’ he would say, ‘how does it turn out +after all? Why here she is at a hundred a year (I give her a hundred, +which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping the house of Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown!’ + +Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties +took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. +It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not +only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There +was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough +elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a +rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the +Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, +An Englishman’s house is his castle, Church and State, and God save the +Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) as an +orator of this kind brought into his peroration, + + ‘Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, + A breath can make them, as a breath has made,’ + +—it was, for certain, more or less understood among the company that he +had heard of Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you are unusually slow, sir, with +your breakfast this morning.’ + +‘Why, ma’am,’ he returned, ‘I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind’s whim;’ +Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of speaking—as if somebody +were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense sums to say Thomas, +and he wouldn’t; ‘Tom Gradgrind’s whim, ma’am, of bringing up the +tumbling-girl.’ + +‘The girl is now waiting to know,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘whether she is to +go straight to the school, or up to the Lodge.’ + +‘She must wait, ma’am,’ answered Bounderby, ‘till I know myself. We +shall have Tom Gradgrind down here presently, I suppose. If he should +wish her to remain here a day or two longer, of course she can, ma’am.’ + +‘Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. Bounderby.’ + +‘I told him I would give her a shake-down here, last night, in order that +he might sleep on it before he decided to let her have any association +with Louisa.’ + +‘Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful of you!’ Mrs. Sparsit’s +Coriolanian nose underwent a slight expansion of the nostrils, and her +black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea. + +‘It’s tolerably clear to _me_,’ said Bounderby, ‘that the little puss can +get small good out of such companionship.’ + +‘Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am, I’m speaking of Louisa.’ + +‘Your observation being limited to “little puss,”’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +‘and there being two little girls in question, I did not know which might +be indicated by that expression.’ + +‘Louisa,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby. ‘Louisa, Louisa.’ + +‘You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.’ Mrs. Sparsit took a +little more tea; and, as she bent her again contracted eyebrows over her +steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical countenance were invoking +the infernal gods. + +‘If you had said I was another father to Tom—young Tom, I mean, not my +friend Tom Gradgrind—you might have been nearer the mark. I am going to +take young Tom into my office. Going to have him under my wing, ma’am.’ + +‘Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?’ Mrs. Sparsit’s ‘sir,’ +in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting +consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him. + +‘I’m not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational +cramming before then,’ said Bounderby. ‘By the Lord Harry, he’ll have +enough of it, first and last! He’d open his eyes, that boy would, if he +knew how empty of learning _my_ young maw was, at his time of life.’ +Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he had heard of it often +enough. ‘But it’s extraordinary the difficulty I have on scores of such +subjects, in speaking to any one on equal terms. Here, for example, I +have been speaking to you this morning about tumblers. Why, what do +_you_ know about tumblers? At the time when, to have been a tumbler in +the mud of the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in the +lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You were coming out of the +Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, +when I hadn’t a penny to buy a link to light you.’ + +‘I certainly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely +mournful, ‘was familiar with the Italian Opera at a very early age.’ + +‘Egad, ma’am, so was I,’ said Bounderby, ‘—with the wrong side of it. A +hard bed the pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure you. People +like you, ma’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, have no +idea _how_ hard a paving-stone is, without trying it. No, no, it’s of no +use my talking to _you_ about tumblers. I should speak of foreign +dancers, and the West End of London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies +and honourables.’ + +‘I trust, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, ‘it is +not necessary that you should do anything of that kind. I hope I have +learnt how to accommodate myself to the changes of life. If I have +acquired an interest in hearing of your instructive experiences, and can +scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit for that, since I believe +it is a general sentiment.’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said her patron, ‘perhaps some people may be pleased to +say that they do like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what Josiah +Bounderby, of Coketown, has gone through. But you must confess that you +were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, ma’am, you know you were +born in the lap of luxury.’ + +‘I do not, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit with a shake of her head, ‘deny +it.’ + +Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and stand with his back +to the fire, looking at her; she was such an enhancement of his position. + +‘And you were in crack society. Devilish high society,’ he said, warming +his legs. + +‘It is true, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affectation of humility +the very opposite of his, and therefore in no danger of jostling it. + +‘You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of it,’ said Mr. +Bounderby. + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of social widowhood upon +her. ‘It is unquestionably true.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally embraced his legs +in his great satisfaction and laughed aloud. Mr. and Miss Gradgrind +being then announced, he received the former with a shake of the hand, +and the latter with a kiss. + +‘Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind. + +Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, she curtseyed to Mr. +Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; but in +her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the +blustrous Bounderby had the following remarks to make: + +‘Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that lady by the teapot, is +Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as mistress of this house, and she is a +highly connected lady. Consequently, if ever you come again into any +room in this house, you will make a short stay in it if you don’t behave +towards that lady in your most respectful manner. Now, I don’t care a +button what you do to _me_, because I don’t affect to be anybody. So far +from having high connections I have no connections at all, and I come of +the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care what you do; and +you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall not come +here.’ + +‘I hope, Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, ‘that +this was merely an oversight.’ + +‘My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,’ said Bounderby, ‘that +this was merely an oversight. Very likely. However, as you are aware, +ma’am, I don’t allow of even oversights towards you.’ + +‘You are very good indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head +with her State humility. ‘It is not worth speaking of.’ + +Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself with tears in +her eyes, was now waved over by the master of the house to Mr. Gradgrind. +She stood looking intently at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her +eyes upon the ground, while he proceeded thus: + +‘Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and, when you +are not in attendance at the school, to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind, +who is rather an invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa—this is Miss +Louisa—the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to +expressly understand that the whole of that subject is past, and is not +to be referred to any more. From this time you begin your history. You +are, at present, ignorant, I know.’ + +‘Yes, sir, very,’ she answered, curtseying. + +‘I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; +and you will be a living proof to all who come into communication with +you, of the advantages of the training you will receive. You will be +reclaimed and formed. You have been in the habit now of reading to your +father, and those people I found you among, I dare say?’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping +his voice. + +‘Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when +Merrylegs was always there.’ + +‘Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing frown. +‘I don’t ask about him. I understand you to have been in the habit of +reading to your father?’ + +‘O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the happiest—O, of all the +happy times we had together, sir!’ + +It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked at her. + +‘And what,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, ‘did you read to +your father, Jupe?’ + +‘About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the +Genies,’ she sobbed out; ‘and about—’ + +‘Hush!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is enough. Never breathe a word of +such destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby, this is a case for rigid +training, and I shall observe it with interest.’ + +‘Well,’ returned Mr. Bounderby, ‘I have given you my opinion already, and +I shouldn’t do as you do. But, very well, very well. Since you are bent +upon it, _very_ well!’ + +So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to +Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, good or bad. +And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got +behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the +evening. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII +NEVER WONDER + + +LET us strike the key-note again, before pursuing the tune. + +When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to +begin a conversation with her brother one day, by saying ‘Tom, I +wonder’—upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped +forth into the light and said, ‘Louisa, never wonder!’ + +Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the +reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and +affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, +multiplication, and division, settle everything somehow, and never +wonder. Bring to me, says M’Choakumchild, yonder baby just able to walk, +and I will engage that it shall never wonder. + +Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there happened to be in +Coketown a considerable population of babies who had been walking against +time towards the infinite world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and +more. These portentous infants being alarming creatures to stalk about +in any human society, the eighteen denominations incessantly scratched +one another’s faces and pulled one another’s hair by way of agreeing on +the steps to be taken for their improvement—which they never did; a +surprising circumstance, when the happy adaptation of the means to the +end is considered. Still, although they differed in every other +particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially inconceivable), +they were pretty well united on the point that these unlucky infants were +never to wonder. Body number one, said they must take everything on +trust. Body number two, said they must take everything on political +economy. Body number three, wrote leaden little books for them, showing +how the good grown-up baby invariably got to the Savings-bank, and the +bad grown-up baby invariably got transported. Body number four, under +dreary pretences of being droll (when it was very melancholy indeed), +made the shallowest pretences of concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into +which it was the duty of these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. But, +all the bodies agreed that they were never to wonder. + +There was a library in Coketown, to which general access was easy. Mr. +Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what the people read in this +library: a point whereon little rivers of tabular statements periodically +flowed into the howling ocean of tabular statements, which no diver ever +got to any depth in and came up sane. It was a disheartening +circumstance, but a melancholy fact, that even these readers persisted in +wondering. They wondered about human nature, human passions, human hopes +and fears, the struggles, triumphs and defeats, the cares and joys and +sorrows, the lives and deaths of common men and women! They sometimes, +after fifteen hours’ work, sat down to read mere fables about men and +women, more or less like themselves, and about children, more or less +like their own. They took De Foe to their bosoms, instead of Euclid, and +seemed to be on the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than by Cocker. +Mr. Gradgrind was for ever working, in print and out of print, at this +eccentric sum, and he never could make out how it yielded this +unaccountable product. + +‘I am sick of my life, Loo. I, hate it altogether, and I hate everybody +except you,’ said the unnatural young Thomas Gradgrind in the +hair-cutting chamber at twilight. + +‘You don’t hate Sissy, Tom?’ + +‘I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And she hates me,’ said Tom, +moodily. + +‘No, she does not, Tom, I am sure!’ + +‘She must,’ said Tom. ‘She must just hate and detest the whole set-out +of us. They’ll bother her head off, I think, before they have done with +her. Already she’s getting as pale as wax, and as heavy as—I am.’ + +Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a chair before +the fire, with his arms on the back, and his sulky face on his arms. His +sister sat in the darker corner by the fireside, now looking at him, now +looking at the bright sparks as they dropped upon the hearth. + +‘As to me,’ said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner of ways with his sulky +hands, ‘I am a Donkey, that’s what _I_ am. I am as obstinate as one, I +am more stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should like +to kick like one.’ + +‘Not me, I hope, Tom?’ + +‘No, Loo; I wouldn’t hurt _you_. I made an exception of you at first. I +don’t know what this—jolly old—Jaundiced Jail,’ Tom had paused to find a +sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the parental roof, and +seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by the strong alliteration of +this one, ‘would be without you.’ + +‘Indeed, Tom? Do you really and truly say so?’ + +‘Why, of course I do. What’s the use of talking about it!’ returned Tom, +chafing his face on his coat-sleeve, as if to mortify his flesh, and have +it in unison with his spirit. + +‘Because, Tom,’ said his sister, after silently watching the sparks +awhile, ‘as I get older, and nearer growing up, I often sit wondering +here, and think how unfortunate it is for me that I can’t reconcile you +to home better than I am able to do. I don’t know what other girls know. +I can’t play to you, or sing to you. I can’t talk to you so as to +lighten your mind, for I never see any amusing sights or read any amusing +books that it would be a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when +you are tired.’ + +‘Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that respect; and I am a Mule +too, which you’re not. If father was determined to make me either a Prig +or a Mule, and I am not a Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be a +Mule. And so I am,’ said Tom, desperately. + +‘It’s a great pity,’ said Louisa, after another pause, and speaking +thoughtfully out of her dark corner: ‘it’s a great pity, Tom. It’s very +unfortunate for both of us.’ + +‘Oh! You,’ said Tom; ‘you are a girl, Loo, and a girl comes out of it +better than a boy does. I don’t miss anything in you. You are the only +pleasure I have—you can brighten even this place—and you can always lead +me as you like.’ + +‘You are a dear brother, Tom; and while you think I can do such things, I +don’t so much mind knowing better. Though I do know better, Tom, and am +very sorry for it.’ She came and kissed him, and went back into her +corner again. + +‘I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about,’ said Tom, +spitefully setting his teeth, ‘and all the Figures, and all the people +who found them out: and I wish I could put a thousand barrels of +gunpowder under them, and blow them all up together! However, when I go +to live with old Bounderby, I’ll have my revenge.’ + +‘Your revenge, Tom?’ + +‘I mean, I’ll enjoy myself a little, and go about and see something, and +hear something. I’ll recompense myself for the way in which I have been +brought up.’ + +‘But don’t disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as +father thinks, and is a great deal rougher, and not half so kind.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Tom, laughing; ‘I don’t mind that. I shall very well know how +to manage and smooth old Bounderby!’ + +Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the high presses +in the room were all blended together on the wall and on the ceiling, as +if the brother and sister were overhung by a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful +imagination—if such treason could have been there—might have made it out +to be the shadow of their subject, and of its lowering association with +their future. + +‘What is your great mode of smoothing and managing, Tom? Is it a +secret?’ + +‘Oh!’ said Tom, ‘if it is a secret, it’s not far off. It’s you. You are +his little pet, you are his favourite; he’ll do anything for you. When +he says to me what I don’t like, I shall say to him, “My sister Loo will +be hurt and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She always used to tell me she +was sure you would be easier with me than this.” That’ll bring him +about, or nothing will.’ + +After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, Tom wearily +relapsed into the present time, and twined himself yawning round and +about the rails of his chair, and rumpled his head more and more, until +he suddenly looked up, and asked: + +‘Have you gone to sleep, Loo?’ + +‘No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.’ + +‘You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I could find,’ said +Tom. ‘Another of the advantages, I suppose, of being a girl.’ + +‘Tom,’ enquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious tone, as if she were +reading what she asked in the fire, and it was not quite plainly written +there, ‘do you look forward with any satisfaction to this change to Mr. +Bounderby’s?’ + +‘Why, there’s one thing to be said of it,’ returned Tom, pushing his +chair from him, and standing up; ‘it will be getting away from home.’ + +‘There is one thing to be said of it,’ Louisa repeated in her former +curious tone; ‘it will be getting away from home. Yes.’ + +‘Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave you, Loo, and to +leave you here. But I must go, you know, whether I like it or not; and I +had better go where I can take with me some advantage of your influence, +than where I should lose it altogether. Don’t you see?’ + +‘Yes, Tom.’ + +The answer was so long in coming, though there was no indecision in it, +that Tom went and leaned on the back of her chair, to contemplate the +fire which so engrossed her, from her point of view, and see what he +could make of it. + +‘Except that it is a fire,’ said Tom, ‘it looks to me as stupid and blank +as everything else looks. What do you see in it? Not a circus?’ + +‘I don’t see anything in it, Tom, particularly. But since I have been +looking at it, I have been wondering about you and me, grown up.’ + +‘Wondering again!’ said Tom. + +‘I have such unmanageable thoughts,’ returned his sister, ‘that they +_will_ wonder.’ + +‘Then I beg of you, Louisa,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, who had opened the door +without being heard, ‘to do nothing of that description, for goodness’ +sake, you inconsiderate girl, or I shall never hear the last of it from +your father. And, Thomas, it is really shameful, with my poor head +continually wearing me out, that a boy brought up as you have been, and +whose education has cost what yours has, should be found encouraging his +sister to wonder, when he knows his father has expressly said that she is +not to do it.’ + +Louisa denied Tom’s participation in the offence; but her mother stopped +her with the conclusive answer, ‘Louisa, don’t tell me, in my state of +health; for unless you had been encouraged, it is morally and physically +impossible that you could have done it.’ + +‘I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the red sparks +dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. It made me think, +after all, how short my life would be, and how little I could hope to do +in it.’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost energetic. ‘Nonsense! +Don’t stand there and tell me such stuff, Louisa, to my face, when you +know very well that if it was ever to reach your father’s ears I should +never hear the last of it. After all the trouble that has been taken +with you! After the lectures you have attended, and the experiments you +have seen! After I have heard you myself, when the whole of my right +side has been benumbed, going on with your master about combustion, and +calcination, and calorification, and I may say every kind of ation that +could drive a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd +way about sparks and ashes! I wish,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a +chair, and discharging her strongest point before succumbing under these +mere shadows of facts, ‘yes, I really _do_ wish that I had never had a +family, and then you would have known what it was to do without me!’ + + + + +CHAPTER IX +SISSY’S PROGRESS + + +SISSY JUPE had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M’Choakumchild and +Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months +of her probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long so very +hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a closely ruled +ciphering-book, that assuredly she would have run away, but for only one +restraint. + +It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result of no +arithmetical process, was self-imposed in defiance of all calculation, +and went dead against any table of probabilities that any Actuary would +have drawn up from the premises. The girl believed that her father had +not deserted her; she lived in the hope that he would come back, and in +the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she +was. + +The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, +rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on a sound arithmetical basis, +that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with +pity. Yet, what was to be done? M’Choakumchild reported that she had a +very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of +the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact +measurements; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, +unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith; that she +would burst into tears on being required (by the mental process) +immediately to name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps +at fourteen-pence halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school, as +low could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of +Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a prattler +three feet high, for returning to the question, ‘What is the first +principle of this science?’ the absurd answer, ‘To do unto others as I +would that they should do unto me.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; +that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of +knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular +statements A to Z; and that Jupe ‘must be kept to it.’ So Jupe was kept +to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser. + +‘It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!’ she said, one night, +when Louisa had endeavoured to make her perplexities for next day +something clearer to her. + +‘Do you think so?’ + +‘I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is difficult to me now, +would be so easy then.’ + +‘You might not be the better for it, Sissy.’ + +Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, ‘I should not be the worse, +Miss Louisa.’ To which Miss Louisa answered, ‘I don’t know that.’ + +There had been so little communication between these two—both because +life at Stone Lodge went monotonously round like a piece of machinery +which discouraged human interference, and because of the prohibition +relative to Sissy’s past career—that they were still almost strangers. +Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed to Louisa’s face, was +uncertain whether to say more or to remain silent. + +‘You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant with her than I can +ever be,’ Louisa resumed. ‘You are pleasanter to yourself, than _I_ am +to _my_self.’ + +‘But, if you please, Miss Louisa,’ Sissy pleaded, ‘I am—O so stupid!’ + +Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her she would be wiser +by-and-by. + +‘You don’t know,’ said Sissy, half crying, ‘what a stupid girl I am. All +through school hours I make mistakes. Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild call +me up, over and over again, regularly to make mistakes. I can’t help +them. They seem to come natural to me.’ + +‘Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild never make any mistakes themselves, I +suppose, Sissy?’ + +‘O no!’ she eagerly returned. ‘They know everything.’ + +‘Tell me some of your mistakes.’ + +‘I am almost ashamed,’ said Sissy, with reluctance. ‘But to-day, for +instance, Mr. M’Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural +Prosperity.’ + +‘National, I think it must have been,’ observed Louisa. + +‘Yes, it was.—But isn’t it the same?’ she timidly asked. + +‘You had better say, National, as he said so,’ returned Louisa, with her +dry reserve. + +‘National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. +And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. Isn’t this a +prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn’t this a prosperous nation, +and a’n’t you in a thriving state?’ + +‘What did you say?’ asked Louisa. + +‘Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I thought I couldn’t know whether it +was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or +not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. +But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,’ +said Sissy, wiping her eyes. + +‘That was a great mistake of yours,’ observed Louisa. + +‘Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he +would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and +in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are +starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your +remark on that proportion? And my remark was—for I couldn’t think of a +better one—that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were +starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And +that was wrong, too.’ + +‘Of course it was.’ + +‘Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said, +Here are the stutterings—’ + +‘Statistics,’ said Louisa. + +‘Yes, Miss Louisa—they always remind me of stutterings, and that’s +another of my mistakes—of accidents upon the sea. And I find (Mr. +M’Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went +to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or +burnt to death. What is the percentage? And I said, Miss;’ here Sissy +fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest +error; ‘I said it was nothing.’ + +‘Nothing, Sissy?’ + +‘Nothing, Miss—to the relations and friends of the people who were +killed. I shall never learn,’ said Sissy. ‘And the worst of all is, +that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, and although I +am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, I am afraid I don’t like +it.’ + +Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it drooped abashed +before her, until it was raised again to glance at her face. Then she +asked: + +‘Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well +taught too, Sissy?’ + +Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her sense that +they were entering on forbidden ground, that Louisa added, ‘No one hears +us; and if any one did, I am sure no harm could be found in such an +innocent question.’ + +‘No, Miss Louisa,’ answered Sissy, upon this encouragement, shaking her +head; ‘father knows very little indeed. It’s as much as he can do to +write; and it’s more than people in general can do to read his writing. +Though it’s plain to _me_.’ + +‘Your mother?’ + +‘Father says she was quite a scholar. She died when I was born. She +was;’ Sissy made the terrible communication nervously; ‘she was a +dancer.’ + +‘Did your father love her?’ Louisa asked these questions with a strong, +wild, wandering interest peculiar to her; an interest gone astray like a +banished creature, and hiding in solitary places. + +‘O yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father loved me, first, for her sake. +He carried me about with him when I was quite a baby. We have never been +asunder from that time.’ + +‘Yet he leaves you now, Sissy?’ + +‘Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do; nobody knows him as I +do. When he left me for my good—he never would have left me for his +own—I know he was almost broken-hearted with the trial. He will not be +happy for a single minute, till he comes back.’ + +‘Tell me more about him,’ said Louisa, ‘I will never ask you again. +Where did you live?’ + +‘We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place to live in. +Father’s a;’ Sissy whispered the awful word, ‘a clown.’ + +‘To make the people laugh?’ said Louisa, with a nod of intelligence. + +‘Yes. But they wouldn’t laugh sometimes, and then father cried. Lately, +they very often wouldn’t laugh, and he used to come home despairing. +Father’s not like most. Those who didn’t know him as well as I do, and +didn’t love him as dearly as I do, might believe he was not quite right. +Sometimes they played tricks upon him; but they never knew how he felt +them, and shrunk up, when he was alone with me. He was far, far timider +than they thought!’ + +‘And you were his comfort through everything?’ + +She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. ‘I hope so, and father +said I was. It was because he grew so scared and trembling, and because +he felt himself to be a poor, weak, ignorant, helpless man (those used to +be his words), that he wanted me so much to know a great deal, and be +different from him. I used to read to him to cheer his courage, and he +was very fond of that. They were wrong books—I am never to speak of them +here—but we didn’t know there was any harm in them.’ + +‘And he liked them?’ said Louisa, with a searching gaze on Sissy all this +time. + +‘O very much! They kept him, many times, from what did him real harm. +And often and often of a night, he used to forget all his troubles in +wondering whether the Sultan would let the lady go on with the story, or +would have her head cut off before it was finished.’ + +‘And your father was always kind? To the last?’ asked Louisa +contravening the great principle, and wondering very much. + +‘Always, always!’ returned Sissy, clasping her hands. ‘Kinder and kinder +than I can tell. He was angry only one night, and that was not to me, +but Merrylegs. Merrylegs;’ she whispered the awful fact; ‘is his +performing dog.’ + +‘Why was he angry with the dog?’ Louisa demanded. + +‘Father, soon after they came home from performing, told Merrylegs to +jump up on the backs of the two chairs and stand across them—which is one +of his tricks. He looked at father, and didn’t do it at once. +Everything of father’s had gone wrong that night, and he hadn’t pleased +the public at all. He cried out that the very dog knew he was failing, +and had no compassion on him. Then he beat the dog, and I was +frightened, and said, “Father, father! Pray don’t hurt the creature who +is so fond of you! O Heaven forgive you, father, stop!” And he stopped, +and the dog was bloody, and father lay down crying on the floor with the +dog in his arms, and the dog licked his face.’ + +Louisa saw that she was sobbing; and going to her, kissed her, took her +hand, and sat down beside her. + +‘Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. Now that I have +asked you so much, tell me the end. The blame, if there is any blame, is +mine, not yours.’ + +‘Dear Miss Louisa,’ said Sissy, covering her eyes, and sobbing yet; ‘I +came home from the school that afternoon, and found poor father just come +home too, from the booth. And he sat rocking himself over the fire, as +if he was in pain. And I said, “Have you hurt yourself, father?” (as he +did sometimes, like they all did), and he said, “A little, my darling.” +And when I came to stoop down and look up at his face, I saw that he was +crying. The more I spoke to him, the more he hid his face; and at first +he shook all over, and said nothing but “My darling;” and “My love!”’ + +Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two with a coolness not +particularly savouring of interest in anything but himself, and not much +of that at present. + +‘I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,’ observed his sister. ‘You have +no occasion to go away; but don’t interrupt us for a moment, Tom dear.’ + +‘Oh! very well!’ returned Tom. ‘Only father has brought old Bounderby +home, and I want you to come into the drawing-room. Because if you come, +there’s a good chance of old Bounderby’s asking me to dinner; and if you +don’t, there’s none.’ + +‘I’ll come directly.’ + +‘I’ll wait for you,’ said Tom, ‘to make sure.’ + +Sissy resumed in a lower voice. ‘At last poor father said that he had +given no satisfaction again, and never did give any satisfaction now, and +that he was a shame and disgrace, and I should have done better without +him all along. I said all the affectionate things to him that came into +my heart, and presently he was quiet and I sat down by him, and told him +all about the school and everything that had been said and done there. +When I had no more left to tell, he put his arms round my neck, and +kissed me a great many times. Then he asked me to fetch some of the +stuff he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it at the best +place, which was at the other end of town from there; and then, after +kissing me again, he let me go. When I had gone down-stairs, I turned +back that I might be a little bit more company to him yet, and looked in +at the door, and said, “Father dear, shall I take Merrylegs?” Father +shook his head and said, “No, Sissy, no; take nothing that’s known to be +mine, my darling;” and I left him sitting by the fire. Then the thought +must have come upon him, poor, poor father! of going away to try +something for my sake; for when I came back, he was gone.’ + +‘I say! Look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!’ Tom remonstrated. + +‘There’s no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I keep the nine oils ready for +him, and I know he will come back. Every letter that I see in Mr. +Gradgrind’s hand takes my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I think it +comes from father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. Mr. Sleary promised +to write as soon as ever father should be heard of, and I trust to him to +keep his word.’ + +‘Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!’ said Tom, with an impatient +whistle. ‘He’ll be off if you don’t look sharp!’ + +After this, whenever Sissy dropped a curtsey to Mr. Gradgrind in the +presence of his family, and said in a faltering way, ‘I beg your pardon, +sir, for being troublesome—but—have you had any letter yet about me?’ +Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, whatever it was, and +look for the reply as earnestly as Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind +regularly answered, ‘No, Jupe, nothing of the sort,’ the trembling of +Sissy’s lip would be repeated in Louisa’s face, and her eyes would follow +Sissy with compassion to the door. Mr. Gradgrind usually improved these +occasions by remarking, when she was gone, that if Jupe had been properly +trained from an early age she would have remonstrated to herself on sound +principles the baselessness of these fantastic hopes. Yet it did seem +(though not to him, for he saw nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could +take as strong a hold as Fact. + +This observation must be limited exclusively to his daughter. As to Tom, +he was becoming that not unprecedented triumph of calculation which is +usually at work on number one. As to Mrs. Gradgrind, if she said +anything on the subject, she would come a little way out of her wrappers, +like a feminine dormouse, and say: + +‘Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and worried by that +girl Jupe’s so perseveringly asking, over and over again, about her +tiresome letters! Upon my word and honour I seem to be fated, and +destined, and ordained, to live in the midst of things that I am never to +hear the last of. It really is a most extraordinary circumstance that it +appears as if I never was to hear the last of anything!’ + +At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind’s eye would fall upon her; and under +the influence of that wintry piece of fact, she would become torpid +again. + + + + +CHAPTER X +STEPHEN BLACKPOOL + + +I ENTERTAIN a weak idea that the English people are as hard-worked as any +people upon whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous +idiosyncrasy, as a reason why I would give them a little more play. + +In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost fortifications +of that ugly citadel, where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing +airs and gases were bricked in; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow +courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come into +existence piecemeal, every piece in a violent hurry for some one man’s +purpose, and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, +and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this great +exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a +draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes, +as though every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might be +expected to be born in it; among the multitude of Coketown, generically +called ‘the Hands,’—a race who would have found more favour with some +people, if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands, or, like the +lower creatures of the seashore, only hands and stomachs—lived a certain +Stephen Blackpool, forty years of age. + +Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is said that every +life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a +misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had +become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same +somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own. He had known, to use his +words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called Old Stephen, in a kind +of rough homage to the fact. + +A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of +face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on which his +iron-grey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed for a +particularly intelligent man in his condition. Yet he was not. He took +no place among those remarkable ‘Hands,’ who, piecing together their +broken intervals of leisure through many years, had mastered difficult +sciences, and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely things. He held no +station among the Hands who could make speeches and carry on debates. +Thousands of his compeers could talk much better than he, at any time. +He was a good power-loom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What +more he was, or what else he had in him, if anything, let him show for +himself. + +The lights in the great factories, which looked, when they were +illuminated, like Fairy palaces—or the travellers by express-train said +so—were all extinguished; and the bells had rung for knocking off for the +night, and had ceased again; and the Hands, men and women, boy and girl, +were clattering home. Old Stephen was standing in the street, with the +old sensation upon him which the stoppage of the machinery always +produced—the sensation of its having worked and stopped in his own head. + +‘Yet I don’t see Rachael, still!’ said he. + +It was a wet night, and many groups of young women passed him, with their +shawls drawn over their bare heads and held close under their chins to +keep the rain out. He knew Rachael well, for a glance at any one of +these groups was sufficient to show him that she was not there. At last, +there were no more to come; and then he turned away, saying in a tone of +disappointment, ‘Why, then, ha’ missed her!’ + +But, he had not gone the length of three streets, when he saw another of +the shawled figures in advance of him, at which he looked so keenly that +perhaps its mere shadow indistinctly reflected on the wet pavement—if he +could have seen it without the figure itself moving along from lamp to +lamp, brightening and fading as it went—would have been enough to tell +him who was there. Making his pace at once much quicker and much softer, +he darted on until he was very near this figure, then fell into his +former walk, and called ‘Rachael!’ + +She turned, being then in the brightness of a lamp; and raising her hood +a little, showed a quiet oval face, dark and rather delicate, irradiated +by a pair of very gentle eyes, and further set off by the perfect order +of her shining black hair. It was not a face in its first bloom; she was +a woman five and thirty years of age. + +‘Ah, lad! ’Tis thou?’ When she had said this, with a smile which would +have been quite expressed, though nothing of her had been seen but her +pleasant eyes, she replaced her hood again, and they went on together. + +‘I thought thou wast ahind me, Rachael?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Early t’night, lass?’ + +‘’Times I’m a little early, Stephen! ’times a little late. I’m never to +be counted on, going home.’ + +‘Nor going t’other way, neither, ’t seems to me, Rachael?’ + +‘No, Stephen.’ + +He looked at her with some disappointment in his face, but with a +respectful and patient conviction that she must be right in whatever she +did. The expression was not lost upon her; she laid her hand lightly on +his arm a moment as if to thank him for it. + +‘We are such true friends, lad, and such old friends, and getting to be +such old folk, now.’ + +‘No, Rachael, thou’rt as young as ever thou wast.’ + +‘One of us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephen, without ’t other +getting so too, both being alive,’ she answered, laughing; ‘but, anyways, +we’re such old friends, and t’ hide a word of honest truth fro’ one +another would be a sin and a pity. ’Tis better not to walk too much +together. ’Times, yes! ’Twould be hard, indeed, if ’twas not to be at +all,’ she said, with a cheerfulness she sought to communicate to him. + +‘’Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.’ + +‘Try to think not; and ’twill seem better.’ + +‘I’ve tried a long time, and ’ta’nt got better. But thou’rt right; ’t +might mak fok talk, even of thee. Thou hast been that to me, Rachael, +through so many year: thou hast done me so much good, and heartened of me +in that cheering way, that thy word is a law to me. Ah, lass, and a +bright good law! Better than some real ones.’ + +‘Never fret about them, Stephen,’ she answered quickly, and not without +an anxious glance at his face. ‘Let the laws be.’ + +‘Yes,’ he said, with a slow nod or two. ‘Let ’em be. Let everything be. +Let all sorts alone. ’Tis a muddle, and that’s aw.’ + +‘Always a muddle?’ said Rachael, with another gentle touch upon his arm, +as if to recall him out of the thoughtfulness, in which he was biting the +long ends of his loose neckerchief as he walked along. The touch had its +instantaneous effect. He let them fall, turned a smiling face upon her, +and said, as he broke into a good-humoured laugh, ‘Ay, Rachael, lass, +awlus a muddle. That’s where I stick. I come to the muddle many times +and agen, and I never get beyond it.’ + +They had walked some distance, and were near their own homes. The +woman’s was the first reached. It was in one of the many small streets +for which the favourite undertaker (who turned a handsome sum out of the +one poor ghastly pomp of the neighbourhood) kept a black ladder, in order +that those who had done their daily groping up and down the narrow stairs +might slide out of this working world by the windows. She stopped at the +corner, and putting her hand in his, wished him good night. + +‘Good night, dear lass; good night!’ + +She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly step, down the dark +street, and he stood looking after her until she turned into one of the +small houses. There was not a flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, but +had its interest in this man’s eyes; not a tone of her voice but had its +echo in his innermost heart. + +When she was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward way, glancing up +sometimes at the sky, where the clouds were sailing fast and wildly. +But, they were broken now, and the rain had ceased, and the moon +shone,—looking down the high chimneys of Coketown on the deep furnaces +below, and casting Titanic shadows of the steam-engines at rest, upon the +walls where they were lodged. The man seemed to have brightened with the +night, as he went on. + +His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it was +narrower, was over a little shop. How it came to pass that any people +found it worth their while to sell or buy the wretched little toys, mixed +up in its window with cheap newspapers and pork (there was a leg to be +raffled for to-morrow-night), matters not here. He took his end of +candle from a shelf, lighted it at another end of candle on the counter, +without disturbing the mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little +room, and went upstairs into his lodging. + +It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various +tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could be. A few books +and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture was decent +and sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted, the room was +clean. + +Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round three-legged +table standing there, he stumbled against something. As he recoiled, +looking down at it, it raised itself up into the form of a woman in a +sitting attitude. + +‘Heaven’s mercy, woman!’ he cried, falling farther off from the figure. +‘Hast thou come back again!’ + +Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to preserve her +sitting posture by steadying herself with one begrimed hand on the floor, +while the other was so purposeless in trying to push away her tangled +hair from her face, that it only blinded her the more with the dirt upon +it. A creature so foul to look at, in her tatters, stains and splashes, +but so much fouler than that in her moral infamy, that it was a shameful +thing even to see her. + +After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of herself with +the hand not necessary to her support, she got her hair away from her +eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then she sat swaying her +body to and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved arm, which seemed +intended as the accompaniment to a fit of laughter, though her face was +stolid and drowsy. + +‘Eigh, lad? What, yo’r there?’ Some hoarse sounds meant for this, came +mockingly out of her at last; and her head dropped forward on her breast. + +‘Back agen?’ she screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that moment +said it. ‘Yes! And back agen. Back agen ever and ever so often. Back? +Yes, back. Why not?’ + +Roused by the unmeaning violence with which she cried it out, she +scrambled up, and stood supporting herself with her shoulders against the +wall; dangling in one hand by the string, a dunghill-fragment of a +bonnet, and trying to look scornfully at him. + +‘I’ll sell thee off again, and I’ll sell thee off again, and I’ll sell +thee off a score of times!’ she cried, with something between a furious +menace and an effort at a defiant dance. ‘Come awa’ from th’ bed!’ He +was sitting on the side of it, with his face hidden in his hands. ‘Come +awa! from ’t. ’Tis mine, and I’ve a right to t’!’ + +As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, and passed—his +face still hidden—to the opposite end of the room. She threw herself +upon the bed heavily, and soon was snoring hard. He sunk into a chair, +and moved but once all that night. It was to throw a covering over her; +as if his hands were not enough to hide her, even in the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XI +NO WAY OUT + + +THE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the +monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A +clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all +the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s +monotony, were at their heavy exercise again. + +Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special +contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where Stephen worked, +to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at which he +laboured. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of mind, that Art +will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere, side by side, the work of +GOD and the work of man; and the former, even though it be a troop of +Hands of very small account, will gain in dignity from the comparison. + +So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam Power. +It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will +do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the +capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or +discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at +any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with +the composed faces and the regulated actions. There is no mystery in it; +there is an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of them, for +ever.—Supposing we were to reverse our arithmetic for material objects, +and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means! + +The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against the flaming +lights within. The lights were turned out, and the work went on. The +rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, submissive to the curse of all that +tribe, trailed themselves upon the earth. In the waste-yard outside, the +steam from the escape pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron, the +shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of +mist and rain. + +The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. More clattering upon the +pavements. The looms, and wheels, and Hands all out of gear for an hour. + +Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold wet streets, +haggard and worn. He turned from his own class and his own quarter, +taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along, towards the hill on +which his principal employer lived, in a red house with black outside +shutters, green inside blinds, a black street door, up two white steps, +BOUNDERBY (in letters very like himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round +brazen door-handle underneath it, like a brazen full-stop. + +Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had expected. Would his +servant say that one of the Hands begged leave to speak to him? Message +in return, requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. There was +nothing troublesome against Stephen Blackpool; yes, he might come in. + +Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he just knew by +sight), at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. Sparsit netting at the +fireside, in a side-saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton stirrup. +It was a part, at once of Mrs. Sparsit’s dignity and service, not to +lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but implied that in her own +stately person she considered lunch a weakness. + +‘Now, Stephen,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘what’s the matter with _you_?’ + +Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one—these Hands will never do that! +Lord bless you, sir, you’ll never catch them at that, if they have been +with you twenty years!—and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, +tucked his neckerchief ends into his waistcoat. + +‘Now, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, taking some sherry, ‘we have never +had any difficulty with you, and you have never been one of the +unreasonable ones. You don’t expect to be set up in a coach and six, and +to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a good many +of ’em do!’ Mr. Bounderby always represented this to be the sole, +immediate, and direct object of any Hand who was not entirely satisfied; +‘and therefore I know already that you have not come here to make a +complaint. Now, you know, I am certain of that, beforehand.’ + +‘No, sir, sure I ha’ not coom for nowt o’ th’ kind.’ + +Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his previous +strong conviction. ‘Very well,’ he returned. ‘You’re a steady Hand, and +I was not mistaken. Now, let me hear what it’s all about. As it’s not +that, let me hear what it is. What have you got to say? Out with it, +lad!’ + +Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I can go, Mr. +Bounderby, if you wish it,’ said that self-sacrificing lady, making a +feint of taking her foot out of the stirrup. + +Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in suspension +before swallowing it, and putting out his left hand. Then, withdrawing +his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen: + +‘Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high lady. You are not +to suppose because she keeps my house for me, that she hasn’t been very +high up the tree—ah, up at the top of the tree! Now, if you have got +anything to say that can’t be said before a born lady, this lady will +leave the room. If what you have got to say _can_ be said before a born +lady, this lady will stay where she is.’ + +‘Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a born lady to year, +sin’ I were born mysen’,’ was the reply, accompanied with a slight flush. + +‘Very well,’ said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his plate, and leaning +back. ‘Fire away!’ + +‘I ha’ coom,’ Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor, after a +moment’s consideration, ‘to ask yo yor advice. I need ’t overmuch. I +were married on Eas’r Monday nineteen year sin, long and dree. She were +a young lass—pretty enow—wi’ good accounts of herseln. Well! She went +bad—soon. Not along of me. Gonnows I were not a unkind husband to her.’ + +‘I have heard all this before,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘She took to +drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, pawned the clothes, and +played old Gooseberry.’ + +‘I were patient wi’ her.’ + +(‘The more fool you, I think,’ said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to his +wine-glass.) + +‘I were very patient wi’ her. I tried to wean her fra ’t ower and ower +agen. I tried this, I tried that, I tried t’other. I ha’ gone home, +many’s the time, and found all vanished as I had in the world, and her +without a sense left to bless herseln lying on bare ground. I ha’ dun ’t +not once, not twice—twenty time!’ + +Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its affecting +evidence of the suffering he had undergone. + +‘From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left me. She disgraced +herseln everyways, bitter and bad. She coom back, she coom back, she +coom back. What could I do t’ hinder her? I ha’ walked the streets +nights long, ere ever I’d go home. I ha’ gone t’ th’ brigg, minded to +fling myseln ower, and ha’ no more on’t. I ha’ bore that much, that I +were owd when I were young.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting-needles, raised the +Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her head, as much as to say, ‘The great +know trouble as well as the small. Please to turn your humble eye in My +direction.’ + +‘I ha’ paid her to keep awa’ fra’ me. These five year I ha’ paid her. I +ha’ gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I ha’ lived hard and sad, but +not ashamed and fearfo’ a’ the minnits o’ my life. Last night, I went +home. There she lay upon my har-stone! There she is!’ + +In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his distress, he +fired for the moment like a proud man. In another moment, he stood as he +had stood all the time—his usual stoop upon him; his pondering face +addressed to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious expression on it, half shrewd, +half perplexed, as if his mind were set upon unravelling something very +difficult; his hat held tight in his left hand, which rested on his hip; +his right arm, with a rugged propriety and force of action, very +earnestly emphasizing what he said: not least so when it always paused, a +little bent, but not withdrawn, as he paused. + +‘I was acquainted with all this, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘except +the last clause, long ago. It’s a bad job; that’s what it is. You had +better have been satisfied as you were, and not have got married. +However, it’s too late to say that.’ + +‘Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point of +years, this unlucky job of yours?’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; she were twenty nighbut.’ + +‘Indeed, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great placidity. ‘I +inferred, from its being so miserable a marriage, that it was probably an +unequal one in point of years.’ + +Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a side-long way that +had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself with a little +more sherry. + +‘Well? Why don’t you go on?’ he then asked, turning rather irritably on +Stephen Blackpool. + +‘I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o’ this woman.’ +Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of his +attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having +received a moral shock. + +‘What do you mean?’ said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against +the chimney-piece. ‘What are you talking about? You took her for better +for worse.’ + +‘I mun’ be ridden o’ her. I cannot bear ’t nommore. I ha’ lived under +’t so long, for that I ha’ had’n the pity and comforting words o’ th’ +best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I should ha’ gone +battering mad.’ + +‘He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I fear, +sir,’ observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much dejected by the +immorality of the people. + +‘I do. The lady says what’s right. I do. I were a coming to ’t. I ha’ +read i’ th’ papers that great folk (fair faw ’em a’! I wishes ’em no +hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worst so fast, but that +they can be set free fro’ _their_ misfortnet marriages, an’ marry ower +agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers is ill-sorted, they +has rooms o’ one kind an’ another in their houses, above a bit, and they +can live asunders. We fok ha’ only one room, and we can’t. When that +won’t do, they ha’ gowd an’ other cash, an’ they can say “This for yo’ +an’ that for me,” an’ they can go their separate ways. We can’t. Spite +o’ all that, they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I +mun be ridden o’ this woman, and I want t’ know how?’ + +‘No how,’ returned Mr. Bounderby. + +‘If I do her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to punish me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘If I marry t’oother dear lass, there’s a law to punish me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘If I was to live wi’ her an’ not marry her—saying such a thing could be, +which it never could or would, an’ her so good—there’s a law to punish +me, in every innocent child belonging to me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘Now, a’ God’s name,’ said Stephen Blackpool, ‘show me the law to help +me!’ + +‘Hem! There’s a sanctity in this relation of life,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘and—and—it must be kept up.’ + +‘No no, dunnot say that, sir. ’Tan’t kep’ up that way. Not that way. +’Tis kep’ down that way. I’m a weaver, I were in a fact’ry when a chilt, +but I ha’ gotten een to see wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ +papers every ’Sizes, every Sessions—and you read too—I know it!—with +dismay—how th’ supposed unpossibility o’ ever getting unchained from one +another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and +brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let +us ha’ this, right understood. Mine’s a grievous case, an’ I want—if yo +will be so good—t’ know the law that helps me.’ + +‘Now, I tell you what!’ said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his +pockets. ‘There _is_ such a law.’ + +Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in his +attention, gave a nod. + +‘But it’s not for you at all. It costs money. It costs a mint of +money.’ + +‘How much might that be?’ Stephen calmly asked. + +‘Why, you’d have to go to Doctors’ Commons with a suit, and you’d have to +go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you’d have to go to the +House of Lords with a suit, and you’d have to get an Act of Parliament to +enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a case of +very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,’ +said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Perhaps twice the money.’ + +‘There’s no other law?’ + +‘Certainly not.’ + +‘Why then, sir,’ said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with that +right hand of his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, ‘’_tis_ a +muddle. ’Tis just a muddle a’toogether, an’ the sooner I am dead, the +better.’ + +(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the people.) + +‘Pooh, pooh! Don’t you talk nonsense, my good fellow,’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘about things you don’t understand; and don’t you call the +Institutions of your country a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a real +muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of your country are +not your piece-work, and the only thing you have got to do, is, to mind +your piece-work. You didn’t take your wife for fast and for loose; but +for better for worse. If she has turned out worse—why, all we have got +to say is, she might have turned out better.’ + +‘’Tis a muddle,’ said Stephen, shaking his head as he moved to the door. +‘’Tis a’ a muddle!’ + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what!’ Mr. Bounderby resumed, as a valedictory +address. ‘With what I shall call your unhallowed opinions, you have been +quite shocking this lady: who, as I have already told you, is a born +lady, and who, as I have not already told you, has had her own marriage +misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds—tens of Thousands +of Pounds!’ (he repeated it with great relish). ‘Now, you have always +been a steady Hand hitherto; but my opinion is, and so I tell you +plainly, that you are turning into the wrong road. You have been +listening to some mischievous stranger or other—they’re always about—and +the best thing you can do is, to come out of that. Now you know;’ here +his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; ‘I can see as far into a +grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I +had my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see traces of the turtle +soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. Yes, I do!’ cried Mr. +Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate cunning. ‘By the Lord Harry, +I do!’ + +With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, Stephen said, +‘Thank you, sir, I wish you good day.’ So he left Mr. Bounderby swelling +at his own portrait on the wall, as if he were going to explode himself +into it; and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on with her foot in her stirrup, +looking quite cast down by the popular vices. + + + + +CHAPTER XII +THE OLD WOMAN + + +OLD STEPHEN descended the two white steps, shutting the black door with +the brazen door-plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to which he +gave a parting polish with the sleeve of his coat, observing that his hot +hand clouded it. He crossed the street with his eyes bent upon the +ground, and thus was walking sorrowfully away, when he felt a touch upon +his arm. + +It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment—the touch that could +calm the wild waters of his soul, as the uplifted hand of the sublimest +love and patience could abate the raging of the sea—yet it was a woman’s +hand too. It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, though withered +by time, on whom his eyes fell when he stopped and turned. She was very +cleanly and plainly dressed, had country mud upon her shoes, and was +newly come from a journey. The flutter of her manner, in the unwonted +noise of the streets; the spare shawl, carried unfolded on her arm; the +heavy umbrella, and little basket; the loose long-fingered gloves, to +which her hands were unused; all bespoke an old woman from the country, +in her plain holiday clothes, come into Coketown on an expedition of rare +occurrence. Remarking this at a glance, with the quick observation of +his class, Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face—his face, which, +like the faces of many of his order, by dint of long working with eyes +and hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, had acquired the +concentrated look with which we are familiar in the countenances of the +deaf—the better to hear what she asked him. + +‘Pray, sir,’ said the old woman, ‘didn’t I see you come out of that +gentleman’s house?’ pointing back to Mr. Bounderby’s. ‘I believe it was +you, unless I have had the bad luck to mistake the person in following?’ + +‘Yes, missus,’ returned Stephen, ‘it were me.’ + +‘Have you—you’ll excuse an old woman’s curiosity—have you seen the +gentleman?’ + +‘Yes, missus.’ + +‘And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, outspoken, and hearty?’ +As she straightened her own figure, and held up her head in adapting her +action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this old +woman before, and had not quite liked her. + +‘O yes,’ he returned, observing her more attentively, ‘he were all that.’ + +‘And healthy,’ said the old woman, ‘as the fresh wind?’ + +‘Yes,’ returned Stephen. ‘He were ett’n and drinking—as large and as +loud as a Hummobee.’ + +‘Thank you!’ said the old woman, with infinite content. ‘Thank you!’ + +He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet there was a vague +remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than once dreamed of some old +woman like her. + +She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating himself to her +humour, he said Coketown was a busy place, was it not? To which she +answered ‘Eigh sure! Dreadful busy!’ Then he said, she came from the +country, he saw? To which she answered in the affirmative. + +‘By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile by Parliamentary this +morning, and I’m going back the same forty mile this afternoon. I walked +nine mile to the station this morning, and if I find nobody on the road +to give me a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back to-night. That’s +pretty well, sir, at my age!’ said the chatty old woman, her eye +brightening with exultation. + +‘’Deed ’tis. Don’t do’t too often, missus.’ + +‘No, no. Once a year,’ she answered, shaking her head. ‘I spend my +savings so, once every year. I come regular, to tramp about the streets, +and see the gentlemen.’ + +‘Only to see ’em?’ returned Stephen. + +‘That’s enough for me,’ she replied, with great earnestness and interest +of manner. ‘I ask no more! I have been standing about, on this side of +the way, to see that gentleman,’ turning her head back towards Mr. +Bounderby’s again, ‘come out. But, he’s late this year, and I have not +seen him. You came out instead. Now, if I am obliged to go back without +a glimpse of him—I only want a glimpse—well! I have seen you, and you +have seen him, and I must make that do.’ Saying this, she looked at +Stephen as if to fix his features in her mind, and her eye was not so +bright as it had been. + +With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all submission +to the patricians of Coketown, this seemed so extraordinary a source of +interest to take so much trouble about, that it perplexed him. But they +were passing the church now, and as his eye caught the clock, he +quickened his pace. + +He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, too, quite +easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his telling her where he worked, +the old woman became a more singular old woman than before. + +‘An’t you happy?’ she asked him. + +‘Why—there’s awmost nobbody but has their troubles, missus.’ He answered +evasively, because the old woman appeared to take it for granted that he +would be very happy indeed, and he had not the heart to disappoint her. +He knew that there was trouble enough in the world; and if the old woman +had lived so long, and could count upon his having so little, why so much +the better for her, and none the worse for him. + +‘Ay, ay! You have your troubles at home, you mean?’ she said. + +‘Times. Just now and then,’ he answered, slightly. + +‘But, working under such a gentleman, they don’t follow you to the +Factory?’ + +No, no; they didn’t follow him there, said Stephen. All correct there. +Everything accordant there. (He did not go so far as to say, for her +pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard +claims almost as magnificent of late years.) + +They were now in the black by-road near the place, and the Hands were +crowding in. The bell was ringing, and the Serpent was a Serpent of many +coils, and the Elephant was getting ready. The strange old woman was +delighted with the very bell. It was the beautifullest bell she had ever +heard, she said, and sounded grand! + +She asked him, when he stopped good-naturedly to shake hands with her +before going in, how long he had worked there? + +‘A dozen year,’ he told her. + +‘I must kiss the hand,’ said she, ‘that has worked in this fine factory +for a dozen year!’ And she lifted it, though he would have prevented +her, and put it to her lips. What harmony, besides her age and her +simplicity, surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantastic +action there was a something neither out of time nor place: a something +which it seemed as if nobody else could have made as serious, or done +with such a natural and touching air. + +He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking about this old woman, +when, having occasion to move round the loom for its adjustment, he +glanced through a window which was in his corner, and saw her still +looking up at the pile of building, lost in admiration. Heedless of the +smoke and mud and wet, and of her two long journeys, she was gazing at +it, as if the heavy thrum that issued from its many stories were proud +music to her. + +She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights sprung +up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy Palace over +the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the machinery, and +scarcely heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then his thoughts +had gone back to the dreary room above the little shop, and to the +shameful figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart. + +Machinery slackened; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; stopped. +The bell again; the glare of light and heat dispelled; the factories, +looming heavy in the black wet night—their tall chimneys rising up into +the air like competing Towers of Babel. + +He had spoken to Rachael only last night, it was true, and had walked +with her a little way; but he had his new misfortune on him, in which no +one else could give him a moment’s relief, and, for the sake of it, and +because he knew himself to want that softening of his anger which no +voice but hers could effect, he felt he might so far disregard what she +had said as to wait for her again. He waited, but she had eluded him. +She was gone. On no other night in the year could he so ill have spared +her patient face. + +O! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than to have a home +and dread to go to it, through such a cause. He ate and drank, for he +was exhausted—but he little knew or cared what; and he wandered about in +the chill rain, thinking and thinking, and brooding and brooding. + +No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but Rachael had +taken great pity on him years ago, and to her alone he had opened his +closed heart all this time, on the subject of his miseries; and he knew +very well that if he were free to ask her, she would take him. He +thought of the home he might at that moment have been seeking with +pleasure and pride; of the different man he might have been that night; +of the lightness then in his now heavy-laden breast; of the then restored +honour, self-respect, and tranquillity all torn to pieces. He thought of +the waste of the best part of his life, of the change it made in his +character for the worse every day, of the dreadful nature of his +existence, bound hand and foot, to a dead woman, and tormented by a demon +in her shape. He thought of Rachael, how young when they were first +brought together in these circumstances, how mature now, how soon to grow +old. He thought of the number of girls and women she had seen marry, how +many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how she +had contentedly pursued her own lone quiet path—for him—and how he had +sometimes seen a shade of melancholy on her blessed face, that smote him +with remorse and despair. He set the picture of her up, beside the +infamous image of last night; and thought, Could it be, that the whole +earthly course of one so gentle, good, and self-denying, was subjugate to +such a wretch as that! + +Filled with these thoughts—so filled that he had an unwholesome sense of +growing larger, of being placed in some new and diseased relation towards +the objects among which he passed, of seeing the iris round every misty +light turn red—he went home for shelter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII +RACHAEL + + +A CANDLE faintly burned in the window, to which the black ladder had +often been raised for the sliding away of all that was most precious in +this world to a striving wife and a brood of hungry babies; and Stephen +added to his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the +casualties of this existence upon earth, not one was dealt out with so +unequal a hand as Death. The inequality of Birth was nothing to it. +For, say that the child of a King and the child of a Weaver were born +to-night in the same moment, what was that disparity, to the death of any +human creature who was serviceable to, or beloved by, another, while this +abandoned woman lived on! + +From the outside of his home he gloomily passed to the inside, with +suspended breath and with a slow footstep. He went up to his door, +opened it, and so into the room. + +Quiet and peace were there. Rachael was there, sitting by the bed. + +She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon the midnight +of his mind. She sat by the bed, watching and tending his wife. That is +to say, he saw that some one lay there, and he knew too well it must be +she; but Rachael’s hands had put a curtain up, so that she was screened +from his eyes. Her disgraceful garments were removed, and some of +Rachael’s were in the room. Everything was in its place and order as he +had always kept it, the little fire was newly trimmed, and the hearth was +freshly swept. It appeared to him that he saw all this in Rachael’s +face, and looked at nothing besides. While looking at it, it was shut +out from his view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but not +before he had seen how earnestly she looked at him, and how her own eyes +were filled too. + +She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying herself that all was +quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice. + +‘I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are very late.’ + +‘I ha’ been walking up an’ down.’ + +‘I thought so. But ’tis too bad a night for that. The rain falls very +heavy, and the wind has risen.’ + +The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to the thundering in the +chimney, and the surging noise! To have been out in such a wind, and not +to have known it was blowing! + +‘I have been here once before, to-day, Stephen. Landlady came round for +me at dinner-time. There was some one here that needed looking to, she +said. And ‘deed she was right. All wandering and lost, Stephen. +Wounded too, and bruised.’ + +He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his head before her. + +‘I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for that she worked +with me when we were girls both, and for that you courted her and married +her when I was her friend—’ + +He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low groan. + +‘And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and certain that +’tis far too merciful to let her die, or even so much as suffer, for want +of aid. Thou knowest who said, “Let him who is without sin among you +cast the first stone at her!” There have been plenty to do that. Thou +art not the man to cast the last stone, Stephen, when she is brought so +low.’ + +‘O Rachael, Rachael!’ + +‘Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!’ she said, in +compassionate accents. ‘I am thy poor friend, with all my heart and +mind.’ + + [Picture: Stephen and Rachael in the sick room] + +The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the neck of the +self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still without showing her. She +steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she poured some liquid +from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand upon the sore. The +three-legged table had been drawn close to the bedside, and on it there +were two bottles. This was one. + +It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with his +eyes, could read what was printed on it in large letters. He turned of a +deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon him. + +‘I will stay here, Stephen,’ said Rachael, quietly resuming her seat, +‘till the bells go Three. ’Tis to be done again at three, and then she +may be left till morning.’ + +‘But thy rest agen to-morrow’s work, my dear.’ + +‘I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put to it. +’Tis thou who art in need of rest—so white and tired. Try to sleep in +the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can +well believe. To-morrow’s work is far harder for thee than for me.’ + +He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to him as +if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at him. She had +cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her to defend him from +himself. + +‘She don’t know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. I +have spoken to her times and again, but she don’t notice! ’Tis as well +so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall have done what I +can, and she never the wiser.’ + +‘How long, Rachael, is ’t looked for, that she’ll be so?’ + +‘Doctor said she would haply come to her mind to-morrow.’ + +His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him, causing +him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled with the wet. +‘No,’ he said, ‘it was not that. He had had a fright.’ + +‘A fright?’ + +‘Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking. When +I—’ It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the mantel-shelf, +as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook as if it +were palsied. + +‘Stephen!’ + +She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop her. + +‘No! Don’t, please; don’t. Let me see thee setten by the bed. Let me +see thee, a’ so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as I see thee +when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. Never, never, +never!’ + +He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair. After a +time he controlled himself, and, resting with an elbow on one knee, and +his head upon that hand, could look towards Rachael. Seen across the dim +candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as if she had a glory shining +round her head. He could have believed she had. He did believe it, as +the noise without shook the window, rattled at the door below, and went +about the house clamouring and lamenting. + +‘When she gets better, Stephen, ’tis to be hoped she’ll leave thee to +thyself again, and do thee no more hurt. Anyways we will hope so now. +And now I shall keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.’ + +He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary head; but, +by slow degrees as he listened to the great noise of the wind, he ceased +to hear it, or it changed into the working of his loom, or even into the +voices of the day (his own included) saying what had been really said. +Even this imperfect consciousness faded away at last, and he dreamed a +long, troubled dream. + +He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been set—but +she was not Rachael, and that surprised him, even in the midst of his +imaginary happiness—stood in the church being married. While the +ceremony was performing, and while he recognized among the witnesses some +whom he knew to be living, and many whom he knew to be dead, darkness +came on, succeeded by the shining of a tremendous light. It broke from +one line in the table of commandments at the altar, and illuminated the +building with the words. They were sounded through the church, too, as +if there were voices in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole +appearance before him and around him changed, and nothing was left as it +had been, but himself and the clergyman. They stood in the daylight +before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could have +been brought together into one space, they could not have looked, he +thought, more numerous; and they all abhorred him, and there was not one +pitying or friendly eye among the millions that were fastened on his +face. He stood on a raised stage, under his own loom; and, looking up at +the shape the loom took, and hearing the burial service distinctly read, +he knew that he was there to suffer death. In an instant what he stood +on fell below him, and he was gone. + +—Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, and to places that +he knew, he was unable to consider; but he was back in those places by +some means, and with this condemnation upon him, that he was never, in +this world or the next, through all the unimaginable ages of eternity, to +look on Rachael’s face or hear her voice. Wandering to and fro, +unceasingly, without hope, and in search of he knew not what (he only +knew that he was doomed to seek it), he was the subject of a nameless, +horrible dread, a mortal fear of one particular shape which everything +took. Whatsoever he looked at, grew into that form sooner or later. The +object of his miserable existence was to prevent its recognition by any +one among the various people he encountered. Hopeless labour! If he led +them out of rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and closets where +it stood, if he drew the curious from places where he knew it to be +secreted, and got them out into the streets, the very chimneys of the +mills assumed that shape, and round them was the printed word. + +The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the house-tops, and +the larger spaces through which he had strayed contracted to the four +walls of his room. Saving that the fire had died out, it was as his eyes +had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have fallen into a doze, in the +chair by the bed. She sat wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. The +table stood in the same place, close by the bedside, and on it, in its +real proportions and appearance, was the shape so often repeated. + +He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and he was sure it +moved. He saw a hand come forth and grope about a little. Then the +curtain moved more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed put it back, and +sat up. + +With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, she looked +all round the room, and passed the corner where he slept in his chair. +Her eyes returned to that corner, and she put her hand over them as a +shade, while she looked into it. Again they went all round the room, +scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and returned to that corner. He +thought, as she once more shaded them—not so much looking at him, as +looking for him with a brutish instinct that he was there—that no single +trace was left in those debauched features, or in the mind that went +along with them, of the woman he had married eighteen years before. But +that he had seen her come to this by inches, he never could have believed +her to be the same. + +All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless and +powerless, except to watch her. + +Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she +sat for a little while with her hands at her ears, and her head resting +on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round the room. And now, +for the first time, her eyes stopped at the table with the bottles on it. + +Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the defiance of +last night, and moving very cautiously and softly, stretched out her +greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and sat for a while +considering which of the two bottles she should choose. Finally, she +laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death +in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth. + +Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If this be +real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, wake! + +She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, very +cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her lips. A +moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world wake and come +about her with its utmost power. But in that moment Rachael started up +with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled, struck her, seized her by +the hair; but Rachael had the cup. + +Stephen broke out of his chair. ‘Rachael, am I wakin’ or dreamin’ this +dreadfo’ night?’ + +‘’Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. ’Tis near three. +Hush! I hear the bells.’ + +The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. They +listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how pale she +was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her +forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been +awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. + +‘I thought it must be near three,’ she said, calmly pouring from the cup +into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. ‘I am thankful I +stayed! ’Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she’s +quiet again. The few drops in the basin I’ll pour away, for ’tis bad +stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it.’ As she spoke, she +drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the +hearth. + +She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before +going out into the wind and rain. + +‘Thou’lt let me walk wi’ thee at this hour, Rachael?’ + +‘No, Stephen. ’Tis but a minute, and I’m home.’ + +‘Thou’rt not fearfo’;’ he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the +door; ‘to leave me alone wi’ her!’ + +As she looked at him, saying, ‘Stephen?’ he went down on his knee before +her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. + +‘Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!’ + +‘I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not +like me. Between them, and a working woman fu’ of faults, there is a +deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed.’ + +She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they +fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. + +‘Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak’st me humbly wishfo’ to be +more like thee, and fearfo’ to lose thee when this life is ower, and a’ +the muddle cleared awa’. Thou’rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my +soul alive!’ + +She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his +hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the working of +his face. + +‘I coom home desp’rate. I coom home wi’out a hope, and mad wi’ thinking +that when I said a word o’ complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable Hand. +I told thee I had had a fright. It were the Poison-bottle on table. I +never hurt a livin’ creetur; but happenin’ so suddenly upon ’t, I thowt, +“How can _I_ say what I might ha’ done to myseln, or her, or both!”’ + +She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop him +from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and holding +them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said hurriedly: + +‘But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha’ seen thee, aw this +night. In my troublous sleep I ha’ known thee still to be there. +Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o’ +her, but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think o’ +anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt be by +th’ side on’t. And so I will try t’ look t’ th’ time, and so I will try +t’ trust t’ th’ time, when thou and me at last shall walk together far +awa’, beyond the deep gulf, in th’ country where thy little sister is.’ + +He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. She bade him +good night in a broken voice, and went out into the street. + +The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon appear, and still +blew strongly. It had cleared the sky before it, and the rain had spent +itself or travelled elsewhere, and the stars were bright. He stood +bare-headed in the road, watching her quick disappearance. As the +shining stars were to the heavy candle in the window, so was Rachael, in +the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV +THE GREAT MANUFACTURER + + +TIME went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material wrought +up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much money made. +But, less inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its varying +seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick, and made the only +stand that ever _was_ made in the place against its direful uniformity. + +‘Louisa is becoming,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘almost a young woman.’ + +Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, not minding what +anybody said, and presently turned out young Thomas a foot taller than +when his father had last taken particular notice of him. + +‘Thomas is becoming,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘almost a young man.’ + +Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was thinking about +it, and there he stood in a long-tailed coat and a stiff shirt-collar. + +‘Really,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘the period has arrived when Thomas ought +to go to Bounderby.’ + +Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby’s Bank, made him an +inmate of Bounderby’s house, necessitated the purchase of his first +razor, and exercised him diligently in his calculations relative to +number one. + +The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of work on +hand, in every stage of development, passed Sissy onward in his mill, and +worked her up into a very pretty article indeed. + +‘I fear, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that your continuance at the school +any longer would be useless.’ + +‘I am afraid it would, sir,’ Sissy answered with a curtsey. + +‘I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his +brow, ‘that the result of your probation there has disappointed me; has +greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. +M’Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact knowledge which I +looked for. You are extremely deficient in your facts. Your +acquaintance with figures is very limited. You are altogether backward, +and below the mark.’ + +‘I am sorry, sir,’ she returned; ‘but I know it is quite true. Yet I +have tried hard, sir.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘yes, I believe you have tried hard; I have +observed you, and I can find no fault in that respect.’ + +‘Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;’ Sissy very timid here; ‘that +perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to be allowed +to try a little less, I might have—’ + +‘No, Jupe, no,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest +and most eminently practical way. ‘No. The course you pursued, you +pursued according to the system—the system—and there is no more to be +said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your early +life were too unfavourable to the development of your reasoning powers, +and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am +disappointed.’ + +‘I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness +to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection +of her.’ + +‘Don’t shed tears,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t shed tears. I don’t +complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good young +woman—and—and we must make that do.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, very much,’ said Sissy, with a grateful curtsey. + +‘You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a generally pervading way) you +are serviceable in the family also; so I understand from Miss Louisa, +and, indeed, so I have observed myself. I therefore hope,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, ‘that you can make yourself happy in those relations.’ + +‘I should have nothing to wish, sir, if—’ + +‘I understand you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind; ‘you still refer to your father. +I have heard from Miss Louisa that you still preserve that bottle. Well! +If your training in the science of arriving at exact results had been +more successful, you would have been wiser on these points. I will say +no more.’ + +He really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for her; otherwise he +held her calculating powers in such very slight estimation that he must +have fallen upon that conclusion. Somehow or other, he had become +possessed by an idea that there was something in this girl which could +hardly be set forth in a tabular form. Her capacity of definition might +be easily stated at a very low figure, her mathematical knowledge at +nothing; yet he was not sure that if he had been required, for example, +to tick her off into columns in a parliamentary return, he would have +quite known how to divide her. + +In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric, the processes of +Time are very rapid. Young Thomas and Sissy being both at such a stage +of their working up, these changes were effected in a year or two; while +Mr. Gradgrind himself seemed stationary in his course, and underwent no +alteration. + +Except one, which was apart from his necessary progress through the mill. +Time hustled him into a little noisy and rather dirty machinery, in a +by-comer, and made him Member of Parliament for Coketown: one of the +respected members for ounce weights and measures, one of the +representatives of the multiplication table, one of the deaf honourable +gentlemen, dumb honourable gentlemen, blind honourable gentlemen, lame +honourable gentlemen, dead honourable gentlemen, to every other +consideration. Else wherefore live we in a Christian land, eighteen +hundred and odd years after our Master? + +All this while, Louisa had been passing on, so quiet and reserved, and so +much given to watching the bright ashes at twilight as they fell into the +grate, and became extinct, that from the period when her father had said +she was almost a young woman—which seemed but yesterday—she had scarcely +attracted his notice again, when he found her quite a young woman. + +‘Quite a young woman,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, musing. ‘Dear me!’ + +Soon after this discovery, he became more thoughtful than usual for +several days, and seemed much engrossed by one subject. On a certain +night, when he was going out, and Louisa came to bid him good-bye before +his departure—as he was not to be home until late and she would not see +him again until the morning—he held her in his arms, looking at her in +his kindest manner, and said: + +‘My dear Louisa, you are a woman!’ + +She answered with the old, quick, searching look of the night when she +was found at the Circus; then cast down her eyes. ‘Yes, father.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I must speak with you alone and +seriously. Come to me in my room after breakfast to-morrow, will you?’ + +‘Yes, father.’ + +‘Your hands are rather cold, Louisa. Are you not well?’ + +‘Quite well, father.’ + +‘And cheerful?’ + +She looked at him again, and smiled in her peculiar manner. ‘I am as +cheerful, father, as I usually am, or usually have been.’ + +‘That’s well,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. So, he kissed her and went away; and +Louisa returned to the serene apartment of the hair-cutting character, +and leaning her elbow on her hand, looked again at the short-lived sparks +that so soon subsided into ashes. + +‘Are you there, Loo?’ said her brother, looking in at the door. He was +quite a young gentleman of pleasure now, and not quite a prepossessing +one. + +‘Dear Tom,’ she answered, rising and embracing him, ‘how long it is since +you have been to see me!’ + +‘Why, I have been otherwise engaged, Loo, in the evenings; and in the +daytime old Bounderby has been keeping me at it rather. But I touch him +up with you when he comes it too strong, and so we preserve an +understanding. I say! Has father said anything particular to you to-day +or yesterday, Loo?’ + +‘No, Tom. But he told me to-night that he wished to do so in the +morning.’ + +‘Ah! That’s what I mean,’ said Tom. ‘Do you know where he is +to-night?’—with a very deep expression. + +‘No.’ + +‘Then I’ll tell you. He’s with old Bounderby. They are having a regular +confab together up at the Bank. Why at the Bank, do you think? Well, +I’ll tell you again. To keep Mrs. Sparsit’s ears as far off as possible, +I expect.’ + +With her hand upon her brother’s shoulder, Louisa still stood looking at +the fire. Her brother glanced at her face with greater interest than +usual, and, encircling her waist with his arm, drew her coaxingly to him. + +‘You are very fond of me, an’t you, Loo?’ + +‘Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let such long intervals go by without +coming to see me.’ + +‘Well, sister of mine,’ said Tom, ‘when you say that, you are near my +thoughts. We might be so much oftener together—mightn’t we? Always +together, almost—mightn’t we? It would do me a great deal of good if you +were to make up your mind to I know what, Loo. It would be a splendid +thing for me. It would be uncommonly jolly!’ + +Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He could make nothing +of her face. He pressed her in his arm, and kissed her cheek. She +returned the kiss, but still looked at the fire. + +‘I say, Loo! I thought I’d come, and just hint to you what was going on: +though I supposed you’d most likely guess, even if you didn’t know. I +can’t stay, because I’m engaged to some fellows to-night. You won’t +forget how fond you are of me?’ + +‘No, dear Tom, I won’t forget.’ + +‘That’s a capital girl,’ said Tom. ‘Good-bye, Loo.’ + +She gave him an affectionate good-night, and went out with him to the +door, whence the fires of Coketown could be seen, making the distance +lurid. She stood there, looking steadfastly towards them, and listening +to his departing steps. They retreated quickly, as glad to get away from +Stone Lodge; and she stood there yet, when he was gone and all was quiet. +It seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in the +fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, +that greatest and longest-established Spinner of all, would weave from +the threads he had already spun into a woman. But his factory is a +secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes. + + + + +CHAPTER XV +FATHER AND DAUGHTER + + +ALTHOUGH Mr. Gradgrind did not take after Blue Beard, his room was quite +a blue chamber in its abundance of blue books. Whatever they could prove +(which is usually anything you like), they proved there, in an army +constantly strengthening by the arrival of new recruits. In that charmed +apartment, the most complicated social questions were cast up, got into +exact totals, and finally settled—if those concerned could only have been +brought to know it. As if an astronomical observatory should be made +without any windows, and the astronomer within should arrange the starry +universe solely by pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in _his_ +Observatory (and there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye upon +the teeming myriads of human beings around him, but could settle all +their destinies on a slate, and wipe out all their tears with one dirty +little bit of sponge. + +To this Observatory, then: a stern room, with a deadly statistical clock +in it, which measured every second with a beat like a rap upon a +coffin-lid; Louisa repaired on the appointed morning. A window looked +towards Coketown; and when she sat down near her father’s table, she saw +the high chimneys and the long tracts of smoke looming in the heavy +distance gloomily. + +‘My dear Louisa,’ said her father, ‘I prepared you last night to give me +your serious attention in the conversation we are now going to have +together. You have been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to say, +so much justice to the education you have received, that I have perfect +confidence in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you are not +romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the strong +dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone, +I know you will view and consider what I am going to communicate.’ + +He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said something. But +she said never a word. + +‘Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has +been made to me.’ + +Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. This so far +surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, ‘a proposal of +marriage, my dear.’ To which she returned, without any visible emotion +whatever: + +‘I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure you.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for the +moment at a loss, ‘you are even more dispassionate than I expected, +Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the announcement I have +it in charge to make?’ + +‘I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared or unprepared, I +wish to hear it all from you. I wish to hear you state it to me, +father.’ + +Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this moment as +his daughter was. He took a paper-knife in his hand, turned it over, +laid it down, took it up again, and even then had to look along the blade +of it, considering how to go on. + +‘What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reasonable. I have +undertaken then to let you know that—in short, that Mr. Bounderby has +informed me that he has long watched your progress with particular +interest and pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ultimately +arrive when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That time, to +which he has so long, and certainly with great constancy, looked forward, +is now come. Mr. Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage to me, and +has entreated me to make it known to you, and to express his hope that +you will take it into your favourable consideration.’ + +Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very hollow. The +distant smoke very black and heavy. + +‘Father,’ said Louisa, ‘do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected question. +‘Well, my child,’ he returned, ‘I—really—cannot take upon myself to say.’ + +‘Father,’ pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, ‘do you ask +me to love Mr. Bounderby?’ + +‘My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.’ + +‘Father,’ she still pursued, ‘does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?’ + +‘Really, my dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘it is difficult to answer your +question—’ + +‘Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father? + +‘Certainly, my dear. Because;’ here was something to demonstrate, and it +set him up again; ‘because the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on +the sense in which we use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not do +you the injustice, and does not do himself the injustice, of pretending +to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I am using synonymous terms) +sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have seen you grow up under his eyes, +to very little purpose, if he could so far forget what is due to your +good sense, not to say to his, as to address you from any such ground. +Therefore, perhaps the expression itself—I merely suggest this to you, my +dear—may be a little misplaced.’ + +‘What would you advise me to use in its stead, father?’ + +‘Why, my dear Louisa,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, completely recovered by this +time, ‘I would advise you (since you ask me) to consider this question, +as you have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply as +one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass such +subjects with irrelevant fancies, and other absurdities that have no +existence, properly viewed—really no existence—but it is no compliment to +you to say, that you know better. Now, what are the Facts of this case? +You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. Bounderby +is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your +respective years, but in your means and positions there is none; on the +contrary, there is a great suitability. Then the question arises, Is +this one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage? In +considering this question, it is not unimportant to take into account the +statistics of marriage, so far as they have yet been obtained, in England +and Wales. I find, on reference to the figures, that a large proportion +of these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages, +and that the elder of these contracting parties is, in rather more than +three-fourths of these instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable as +showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the +British possessions in India, also in a considerable part of China, and +among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet +furnished us by travellers, yield similar results. The disparity I have +mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all +but disappears.’ + +‘What do you recommend, father,’ asked Louisa, her reserved composure not +in the least affected by these gratifying results, ‘that I should +substitute for the term I used just now? For the misplaced expression?’ + +‘Louisa,’ returned her father, ‘it appears to me that nothing can be +plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact you +state to yourself is: Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he +does. The sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him? I think +nothing can be plainer than that?’ + +‘Shall I marry him?’ repeated Louisa, with great deliberation. + +‘Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear +Louisa, to know that you do not come to the consideration of that +question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that +belong to many young women.’ + +‘No, father,’ she returned, ‘I do not.’ + +‘I now leave you to judge for yourself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘I have +stated the case, as such cases are usually stated among practical minds; +I have stated it, as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its +time. The rest, my dear Louisa, is for you to decide.’ + +From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned +back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, +perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was +impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up +confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a +bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, +between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will +elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be +sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and +too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, +matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into +the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost +opportunities that are drowned there. + +Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently towards the +town, that he said, at length: ‘Are you consulting the chimneys of the +Coketown works, Louisa?’ + +‘There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet +when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!’ she answered, turning +quickly. + +‘Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of the +remark.’ To do him justice he did not, at all. + +She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating +her attention upon him again, said, ‘Father, I have often thought that +life is very short.’—This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he +interposed. + +‘It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human +life is proved to have increased of late years. The calculations of +various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures which +cannot go wrong, have established the fact.’ + +‘I speak of my own life, father.’ + +‘O indeed? Still,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I need not point out to you, +Louisa, that it is governed by the laws which govern lives in the +aggregate.’ + +‘While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am +fit for. What does it matter?’ + +Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words; +replying, ‘How, matter? What matter, my dear?’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ she went on in a steady, straight way, without regarding +this, ‘asks me to marry him. The question I have to ask myself is, shall +I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so, +father. Have you not?’ + +‘Certainly, my dear.’ + +‘Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied +to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you please, that +this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I +should wish him to know what I said.’ + +‘It is quite right, my dear,’ retorted her father approvingly, ‘to be +exact. I will observe your very proper request. Have you any wish in +reference to the period of your marriage, my child?’ + +‘None, father. What does it matter!’ + +Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken her +hand. But, her repetition of these words seemed to strike with some +little discord on his ear. He paused to look at her, and, still holding +her hand, said: + +‘Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you one question, +because the possibility implied in it appeared to me to be too remote. +But perhaps I ought to do so. You have never entertained in secret any +other proposal?’ + +‘Father,’ she returned, almost scornfully, ‘what other proposal can have +been made to _me_? Whom have I seen? Where have I been? What are my +heart’s experiences?’ + +‘My dear Louisa,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured and satisfied. ‘You +correct me justly. I merely wished to discharge my duty.’ + +‘What do _I_ know, father,’ said Louisa in her quiet manner, ‘of tastes +and fancies; of aspirations and affections; of all that part of my nature +in which such light things might have been nourished? What escape have I +had from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be +grasped?’ As she said it, she unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon +a solid object, and slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust or +ash. + +‘My dear,’ assented her eminently practical parent, ‘quite true, quite +true.’ + +‘Why, father,’ she pursued, ‘what a strange question to ask _me_! The +baby-preference that even I have heard of as common among children, has +never had its innocent resting-place in my breast. You have been so +careful of me, that I never had a child’s heart. You have trained me so +well, that I never dreamed a child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely +with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s +belief or a child’s fear.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to +it. ‘My dear Louisa,’ said he, ‘you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, +my dear girl.’ + +So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his embrace, he said, ‘I +may assure you now, my favourite child, that I am made happy by the sound +decision at which you have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very remarkable +man; and what little disparity can be said to exist between you—if any—is +more than counterbalanced by the tone your mind has acquired. It has +always been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still +in your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age. +Kiss me once more, Louisa. Now, let us go and find your mother.’ + +Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, where the esteemed lady +with no nonsense about her, was recumbent as usual, while Sissy worked +beside her. She gave some feeble signs of returning animation when they +entered, and presently the faint transparency was presented in a sitting +attitude. + +‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, who had waited for the achievement of +this feat with some impatience, ‘allow me to present to you Mrs. +Bounderby.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘so you have settled it! Well, I’m sure I +hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as +soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider +that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as +all girls do. However, I give you joy, my dear—and I hope you may now +turn all your ological studies to good account, I am sure I do! I must +give you a kiss of congratulation, Louisa; but don’t touch my right +shoulder, for there’s something running down it all day long. And now +you see,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the +affectionate ceremony, ‘I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, and +night, to know what I am to call him!’ + +‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, solemnly, ‘what do you mean?’ + +‘Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! +I must call him something. It’s impossible,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a +mingled sense of politeness and injury, ‘to be constantly addressing him +and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is +insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well +know. Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless +the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my +relations. Then, what am I to call him!’ + +Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable +emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, after +delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed: + +‘As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,—and I ask it with a fluttering +in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my feet,—that it may +take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall +never hear the last of.’ + +When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly +turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in +a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen +it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud +and cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her altogether. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI +HUSBAND AND WIFE + + +MR. BOUNDERBY’S first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was +occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could +not make up his mind how to do that, or what the consequences of the step +might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and baggage, to Lady +Scadgers, or would positively refuse to budge from the premises; whether +she would be plaintive or abusive, tearful or tearing; whether she would +break her heart, or break the looking-glass; Mr. Bounderby could not all +foresee. However, as it must be done, he had no choice but to do it; so, +after attempting several letters, and failing in them all, he resolved to +do it by word of mouth. + +On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this momentous purpose, +he took the precaution of stepping into a chemist’s shop and buying a +bottle of the very strongest smelling-salts. ‘By George!’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘if she takes it in the fainting way, I’ll have the skin off +her nose, at all events!’ But, in spite of being thus forearmed, he +entered his own house with anything but a courageous air; and appeared +before the object of his misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of +coming direct from the pantry. + +‘Good evening, Mr. Bounderby!’ + +‘Good evening, ma’am, good evening.’ He drew up his chair, and Mrs. +Sparsit drew back hers, as who should say, ‘Your fireside, sir. I freely +admit it. It is for you to occupy it all, if you think proper.’ + +‘Don’t go to the North Pole, ma’am!’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, though short of her +former position. + +Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points of a stiff, sharp +pair of scissors, she picked out holes for some inscrutable ornamental +purpose, in a piece of cambric. An operation which, taken in connexion +with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with some +liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the eyes of a tough little +bird. She was so steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before +she looked up from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her +attention with a hitch of his head. + +‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his +pockets, and assuring himself with his right hand that the cork of the +little bottle was ready for use, ‘I have no occasion to say to you, that +you are not only a lady born and bred, but a devilish sensible woman.’ + +‘Sir,’ returned the lady, ‘this is indeed not the first time that you +have honoured me with similar expressions of your good opinion.’ + +‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘I am going to astonish you.’ + +‘Yes, sir?’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, interrogatively, and in the most +tranquil manner possible. She generally wore mittens, and she now laid +down her work, and smoothed those mittens. + +‘I am going, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘to marry Tom Gradgrind’s daughter.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I hope you may be happy, Mr. +Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you may be happy, sir!’ And she said it +with such great condescension as well as with such great compassion for +him, that Bounderby,—far more disconcerted than if she had thrown her +workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the hearthrug,—corked up the +smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and thought, ‘Now confound this +woman, who could have even guessed that she would take it in this way!’ + +‘I wish with all my heart, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, in a highly superior +manner; somehow she seemed, in a moment, to have established a right to +pity him ever afterwards; ‘that you may be in all respects very happy.’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Bounderby, with some resentment in his tone: +which was clearly lowered, though in spite of himself, ‘I am obliged to +you. I hope I shall be.’ + +‘_Do_ you, sir!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with great affability. ‘But +naturally you do; of course you do.’ + +A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby’s part, succeeded. Mrs. Sparsit +sedately resumed her work and occasionally gave a small cough, which +sounded like the cough of conscious strength and forbearance. + +‘Well, ma’am,’ resumed Bounderby, ‘under these circumstances, I imagine +it would not be agreeable to a character like yours to remain here, +though you would be very welcome here.’ + +‘Oh, dear no, sir, I could on no account think of that!’ Mrs. Sparsit +shook her head, still in her highly superior manner, and a little changed +the small cough—coughing now, as if the spirit of prophecy rose within +her, but had better be coughed down. + +‘However, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘there are apartments at the Bank, +where a born and bred lady, as keeper of the place, would be rather a +catch than otherwise; and if the same terms—’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to promise that you would +always substitute the phrase, annual compliment.’ + +‘Well, ma’am, annual compliment. If the same annual compliment would be +acceptable there, why, I see nothing to part us, unless you do.’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘The proposal is like yourself, and if the +position I shall assume at the Bank is one that I could occupy without +descending lower in the social scale—’ + +‘Why, of course it is,’ said Bounderby. ‘If it was not, ma’am, you don’t +suppose that I should offer it to a lady who has moved in the society you +have moved in. Not that _I_ care for such society, you know! But _you_ +do.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby, you are very considerate.’ + +‘You’ll have your own private apartments, and you’ll have your coals and +your candles, and all the rest of it, and you’ll have your maid to attend +upon you, and you’ll have your light porter to protect you, and you’ll be +what I take the liberty of considering precious comfortable,’ said +Bounderby. + +‘Sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, ‘say no more. In yielding up my trust +here, I shall not be freed from the necessity of eating the bread of +dependence:’ she might have said the sweetbread, for that delicate +article in a savoury brown sauce was her favourite supper: ‘and I would +rather receive it from your hand, than from any other. Therefore, sir, I +accept your offer gratefully, and with many sincere acknowledgments for +past favours. And I hope, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an +impressively compassionate manner, ‘I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may +be all you desire, and deserve!’ + +Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. It was in vain +for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in any of his explosive +ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on him, as a Victim. +She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful; but, the more polite, the +more obliging, the more cheerful, the more hopeful, the more exemplary +altogether, she; the forlorner Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that +tenderness for his melancholy fate, that his great red countenance used +to break out into cold perspirations when she looked at him. + +Meanwhile the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight weeks’ +time, and Mr. Bounderby went every evening to Stone Lodge as an accepted +wooer. Love was made on these occasions in the form of bracelets; and, +on all occasions during the period of betrothal, took a manufacturing +aspect. Dresses were made, jewellery was made, cakes and gloves were +made, settlements were made, and an extensive assortment of Facts did +appropriate honour to the contract. The business was all Fact, from +first to last. The Hours did not go through any of those rosy +performances, which foolish poets have ascribed to them at such times; +neither did the clocks go any faster, or any slower, than at other +seasons. The deadly statistical recorder in the Gradgrind observatory +knocked every second on the head as it was born, and buried it with his +accustomed regularity. + +So the day came, as all other days come to people who will only stick to +reason; and when it came, there were married in the church of the florid +wooden legs—that popular order of architecture—Josiah Bounderby Esquire +of Coketown, to Louisa eldest daughter of Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of +Stone Lodge, M.P. for that borough. And when they were united in holy +matrimony, they went home to breakfast at Stone Lodge aforesaid. + +There was an improving party assembled on the auspicious occasion, who +knew what everything they had to eat and drink was made of, and how it +was imported or exported, and in what quantities, and in what bottoms, +whether native or foreign, and all about it. The bridesmaids, down to +little Jane Gradgrind, were, in an intellectual point of view, fit +helpmates for the calculating boy; and there was no nonsense about any of +the company. + +After breakfast, the bridegroom addressed them in the following terms: + +‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Since you have +done my wife and myself the honour of drinking our healths and happiness, +I suppose I must acknowledge the same; though, as you all know me, and +know what I am, and what my extraction was, you won’t expect a speech +from a man who, when he sees a Post, says “that’s a Post,” and when he +sees a Pump, says “that’s a Pump,” and is not to be got to call a Post a +Pump, or a Pump a Post, or either of them a Toothpick. If you want a +speech this morning, my friend and father-in-law, Tom Gradgrind, is a +Member of Parliament, and you know where to get it. I am not your man. +However, if I feel a little independent when I look around this table +to-day, and reflect how little I thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter when I was a ragged street-boy, who never washed his face unless +it was at a pump, and that not oftener than once a fortnight, I hope I +may be excused. So, I hope you like my feeling independent; if you +don’t, I can’t help it. I _do_ feel independent. Now I have mentioned, +and you have mentioned, that I am this day married to Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has long been my wish to be so. +I have watched her bringing-up, and I believe she is worthy of me. At +the same time—not to deceive you—I believe I am worthy of her. So, I +thank you, on both our parts, for the good-will you have shown towards +us; and the best wish I can give the unmarried part of the present +company, is this: I hope every bachelor may find as good a wife as I have +found. And I hope every spinster may find as good a husband as my wife +has found.’ + +Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial trip to +Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might take the opportunity of seeing +how the Hands got on in those parts, and whether they, too, required to +be fed with gold spoons; the happy pair departed for the railroad. The +bride, in passing down-stairs, dressed for her journey, found Tom waiting +for her—flushed, either with his feelings, or the vinous part of the +breakfast. + +‘What a game girl you are, to be such a first-rate sister, Loo!’ +whispered Tom. + +She clung to him as she should have clung to some far better nature that +day, and was a little shaken in her reserved composure for the first +time. + +‘Old Bounderby’s quite ready,’ said Tom. ‘Time’s up. Good-bye! I shall +be on the look-out for you, when you come back. I say, my dear Loo! +AN’T it uncommonly jolly now!’ + + * * * * * + + END OF THE FIRST BOOK + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND +_REAPING_ + + +CHAPTER I +EFFECTS IN THE BANK + + +A SUNNY midsummer day. There was such a thing sometimes, even in +Coketown. + +Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of +its own, which appeared impervious to the sun’s rays. You only knew the +town was there, because you knew there could have been no such sulky +blotch upon the prospect without a town. A blur of soot and smoke, now +confusedly tending this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of +Heaven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose and fell, +or changed its quarter: a dense formless jumble, with sheets of cross +light in it, that showed nothing but masses of darkness:—Coketown in the +distance was suggestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be +seen. + +The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, that +it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there never was +such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were +made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such +ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were +ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; +they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; +they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether +they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; +they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not +always make quite so much smoke. Besides Mr. Bounderby’s gold spoon +which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was +very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner +felt he was ill-used—that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely +alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences +of any of his acts—he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he +would ‘sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.’ This had terrified +the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions. + +However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that they never had +pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but, on the contrary, had +been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So there it was, in the +haze yonder; and it increased and multiplied. + +The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun was so +bright that it even shone through the heavy vapour drooping over +Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily. Stokers emerged from low +underground doorways into factory yards, and sat on steps, and posts, and +palings, wiping their swarthy visages, and contemplating coals. The +whole town seemed to be frying in oil. There was a stifling smell of hot +oil everywhere. The steam-engines shone with it, the dresses of the +Hands were soiled with it, the mills throughout their many stories oozed +and trickled it. The atmosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the +breath of the simoom: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled +languidly in the desert. But no temperature made the melancholy mad +elephants more mad or more sane. Their wearisome heads went up and down +at the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet weather and dry, fair +weather and foul. The measured motion of their shadows on the walls, was +the substitute Coketown had to show for the shadows of rustling woods; +while, for the summer hum of insects, it could offer, all the year round, +from the dawn of Monday to the night of Saturday, the whirr of shafts and +wheels. + +Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the passenger +more sleepy and more hot as he passed the humming walls of the mills. +Sun-blinds, and sprinklings of water, a little cooled the main streets +and the shops; but the mills, and the courts and alleys, baked at a +fierce heat. Down upon the river that was black and thick with dye, some +Coketown boys who were at large—a rare sight there—rowed a crazy boat, +which made a spumous track upon the water as it jogged along, while every +dip of an oar stirred up vile smells. But the sun itself, however +beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and +rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering +more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil +eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the +things it looks upon to bless. + +Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the Bank, on the shadier +side of the frying street. Office-hours were over: and at that period of +the day, in warm weather, she usually embellished with her genteel +presence, a managerial board-room over the public office. Her own +private sitting-room was a story higher, at the window of which post of +observation she was ready, every morning, to greet Mr. Bounderby, as he +came across the road, with the sympathizing recognition appropriate to a +Victim. He had been married now a year; and Mrs. Sparsit had never +released him from her determined pity a moment. + +The Bank offered no violence to the wholesome monotony of the town. It +was another red brick house, with black outside shutters, green inside +blinds, a black street-door up two white steps, a brazen door-plate, and +a brazen door-handle full stop. It was a size larger than Mr. +Bounderby’s house, as other houses were from a size to half-a-dozen sizes +smaller; in all other particulars, it was strictly according to pattern. + +Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the evening-tide among the +desks and writing implements, she shed a feminine, not to say also +aristocratic, grace upon the office. Seated, with her needlework or +netting apparatus, at the window, she had a self-laudatory sense of +correcting, by her ladylike deportment, the rude business aspect of the +place. With this impression of her interesting character upon her, Mrs. +Sparsit considered herself, in some sort, the Bank Fairy. The +townspeople who, in their passing and repassing, saw her there, regarded +her as the Bank Dragon keeping watch over the treasures of the mine. + +What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit knew as little as they did. Gold +and silver coin, precious paper, secrets that if divulged would bring +vague destruction upon vague persons (generally, however, people whom she +disliked), were the chief items in her ideal catalogue thereof. For the +rest, she knew that after office-hours, she reigned supreme over all the +office furniture, and over a locked-up iron room with three locks, +against the door of which strong chamber the light porter laid his head +every night, on a truckle bed, that disappeared at cockcrow. Further, +she was lady paramount over certain vaults in the basement, sharply +spiked off from communication with the predatory world; and over the +relics of the current day’s work, consisting of blots of ink, worn-out +pens, fragments of wafers, and scraps of paper torn so small, that +nothing interesting could ever be deciphered on them when Mrs. Sparsit +tried. Lastly, she was guardian over a little armoury of cutlasses and +carbines, arrayed in vengeful order above one of the official +chimney-pieces; and over that respectable tradition never to be separated +from a place of business claiming to be wealthy—a row of +fire-buckets—vessels calculated to be of no physical utility on any +occasion, but observed to exercise a fine moral influence, almost equal +to bullion, on most beholders. + +A deaf serving-woman and the light porter completed Mrs. Sparsit’s +empire. The deaf serving-woman was rumoured to be wealthy; and a saying +had for years gone about among the lower orders of Coketown, that she +would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, for the sake of her +money. It was generally considered, indeed, that she had been due some +time, and ought to have fallen long ago; but she had kept her life, and +her situation, with an ill-conditioned tenacity that occasioned much +offence and disappointment. + +Mrs. Sparsit’s tea was just set for her on a pert little table, with its +tripod of legs in an attitude, which she insinuated after office-hours, +into the company of the stern, leathern-topped, long board-table that +bestrode the middle of the room. The light porter placed the tea-tray on +it, knuckling his forehead as a form of homage. + +‘Thank you, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Thank _you_, ma’am,’ returned the light porter. He was a very light +porter indeed; as light as in the days when he blinkingly defined a +horse, for girl number twenty. + +‘All is shut up, Bitzer?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘All is shut up, ma’am.’ + +‘And what,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, ‘is the news of the +day? Anything?’ + +‘Well, ma’am, I can’t say that I have heard anything particular. Our +people are a bad lot, ma’am; but that is no news, unfortunately.’ + +‘What are the restless wretches doing now?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Merely going on in the old way, ma’am. Uniting, and leaguing, and +engaging to stand by one another.’ + +‘It is much to be regretted,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, making her nose more +Roman and her eyebrows more Coriolanian in the strength of her severity, +‘that the united masters allow of any such class-combinations.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bitzer. + +‘Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces +against employing any man who is united with any other man,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit. + +‘They have done that, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer; ‘but it rather fell +through, ma’am.’ + +‘I do not pretend to understand these things,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with +dignity, ‘my lot having been signally cast in a widely different sphere; +and Mr. Sparsit, as a Powler, being also quite out of the pale of any +such dissensions. I only know that these people must be conquered, and +that it’s high time it was done, once for all.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, with a demonstration of great respect for +Mrs. Sparsit’s oracular authority. ‘You couldn’t put it clearer, I am +sure, ma’am.’ + +As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential chat with +Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught her eye and seen that she was +going to ask him something, he made a pretence of arranging the rulers, +inkstands, and so forth, while that lady went on with her tea, glancing +through the open window, down into the street. + +‘Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average day.’ He now and then +slided into my lady, instead of ma’am, as an involuntary acknowledgment +of Mrs. Sparsit’s personal dignity and claims to reverence. + +‘The clerks,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an imperceptible +crumb of bread and butter from her left-hand mitten, ‘are trustworthy, +punctual, and industrious, of course?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am, pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception.’ + +He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the +establishment, for which volunteer service he received a present at +Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an +extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe to rise +in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, that he had no +affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result of the +nicest and coldest calculation; and it was not without cause that Mrs. +Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young man of the +steadiest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied himself, on his +father’s death, that his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, +this excellent young economist had asserted that right for her with such +a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been +shut up in the workhouse ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed +her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, because all +gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and +secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would +have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and sell it +for as much as he could possibly get; it having been clearly ascertained +by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man—not a +part of man’s duty, but the whole. + +‘Pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception, ma’am,’ repeated Bitzer. + +‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over her tea-cup, and taking +a long gulp. + +‘Mr. Thomas, ma’am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma’am, I don’t like his +ways at all.’ + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive manner, ‘do you +recollect my having said anything to you respecting names?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. It’s quite true that you did object to names +being used, and they’re always best avoided.’ + +‘Please to remember that I have a charge here,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with +her air of state. ‘I hold a trust here, Bitzer, under Mr. Bounderby. +However improbable both Mr. Bounderby and myself might have deemed it +years ago, that he would ever become my patron, making me an annual +compliment, I cannot but regard him in that light. From Mr. Bounderby I +have received every acknowledgment of my social station, and every +recognition of my family descent, that I could possibly expect. More, +far more. Therefore, to my patron I will be scrupulously true. And I do +not consider, I will not consider, I cannot consider,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +with a most extensive stock on hand of honour and morality, ‘that I +_should_ be scrupulously true, if I allowed names to be mentioned under +this roof, that are unfortunately—most unfortunately—no doubt of +that—connected with his.’ + +Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and again begged pardon. + +‘No, Bitzer,’ continued Mrs. Sparsit, ‘say an individual, and I will hear +you; say Mr. Thomas, and you must excuse me.’ + +‘With the usual exception, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, trying back, ‘of an +individual.’ + +‘Ah—h!’ Mrs. Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the head +over her tea-cup, and the long gulp, as taking up the conversation again +at the point where it had been interrupted. + +‘An individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘has never been what he ought to +have been, since he first came into the place. He is a dissipated, +extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma’am. He wouldn’t get it +either, if he hadn’t a friend and relation at court, ma’am!’ + +‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with another melancholy shake of her head. + +‘I only hope, ma’am,’ pursued Bitzer, ‘that his friend and relation may +not supply him with the means of carrying on. Otherwise, ma’am, we know +out of whose pocket _that_ money comes.’ + +‘Ah—h!’ sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with another melancholy shake of her +head. + +‘He is to be pitied, ma’am. The last party I have alluded to, is to be +pitied, ma’am,’ said Bitzer. + +‘Yes, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I have always pitied the delusion, +always.’ + +‘As to an individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, dropping his voice and drawing +nearer, ‘he is as improvident as any of the people in this town. And you +know what _their_ improvidence is, ma’am. No one could wish to know it +better than a lady of your eminence does.’ + +‘They would do well,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘to take example by you, +Bitzer.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am. But, since you do refer to me, now look at me, ma’am. +I have put by a little, ma’am, already. That gratuity which I receive at +Christmas, ma’am: I never touch it. I don’t even go the length of my +wages, though they’re not high, ma’am. Why can’t they do as I have done, +ma’am? What one person can do, another can do.’ + +This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there, +who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to +wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty +thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every +one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why +don’t you go and do it? + +‘As to their wanting recreations, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘it’s stuff and +nonsense. _I_ don’t want recreations. I never did, and I never shall; I +don’t like ’em. As to their combining together; there are many of them, +I have no doubt, that by watching and informing upon one another could +earn a trifle now and then, whether in money or good will, and improve +their livelihood. Then, why don’t they improve it, ma’am! It’s the +first consideration of a rational creature, and it’s what they pretend to +want.’ + +‘Pretend indeed!’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘I am sure we are constantly hearing, ma’am, till it becomes quite +nauseous, concerning their wives and families,’ said Bitzer. ‘Why look +at me, ma’am! I don’t want a wife and family. Why should they?’ + +‘Because they are improvident,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, ‘that’s where it is. If they were more +provident and less perverse, ma’am, what would they do? They would say, +“While my hat covers my family,” or “while my bonnet covers my +family,”—as the case might be, ma’am—“I have only one to feed, and that’s +the person I most like to feed.”’ + +‘To be sure,’ assented Mrs. Sparsit, eating muffin. + +‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, knuckling his forehead again, in return +for the favour of Mrs. Sparsit’s improving conversation. ‘Would you wish +a little more hot water, ma’am, or is there anything else that I could +fetch you?’ + +‘Nothing just now, Bitzer.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am. I shouldn’t wish to disturb you at your meals, ma’am, +particularly tea, knowing your partiality for it,’ said Bitzer, craning a +little to look over into the street from where he stood; ‘but there’s a +gentleman been looking up here for a minute or so, ma’am, and he has come +across as if he was going to knock. That _is_ his knock, ma’am, no +doubt.’ + +He stepped to the window; and looking out, and drawing in his head again, +confirmed himself with, ‘Yes, ma’am. Would you wish the gentleman to be +shown in, ma’am?’ + +‘I don’t know who it can be,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, wiping her mouth and +arranging her mittens. + +‘A stranger, ma’am, evidently.’ + +‘What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time of the evening, unless +he comes upon some business for which he is too late, I don’t know,’ said +Mrs. Sparsit, ‘but I hold a charge in this establishment from Mr. +Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. If to see him is any part of +the duty I have accepted, I will see him. Use your own discretion, +Bitzer.’ + +Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit’s magnanimous words, +repeated his knock so loudly that the light porter hastened down to open +the door; while Mrs. Sparsit took the precaution of concealing her little +table, with all its appliances upon it, in a cupboard, and then decamped +up-stairs, that she might appear, if needful, with the greater dignity. + +‘If you please, ma’am, the gentleman would wish to see you,’ said Bitzer, +with his light eye at Mrs. Sparsit’s keyhole. So, Mrs. Sparsit, who had +improved the interval by touching up her cap, took her classical features +down-stairs again, and entered the board-room in the manner of a Roman +matron going outside the city walls to treat with an invading general. + +The visitor having strolled to the window, and being then engaged in +looking carelessly out, was as unmoved by this impressive entry as man +could possibly be. He stood whistling to himself with all imaginable +coolness, with his hat still on, and a certain air of exhaustion upon +him, in part arising from excessive summer, and in part from excessive +gentility. For it was to be seen with half an eye that he was a thorough +gentleman, made to the model of the time; weary of everything, and +putting no more faith in anything than Lucifer. + +‘I believe, sir,’ quoth Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you wished to see me.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, turning and removing his hat; ‘pray excuse +me.’ + +‘Humph!’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she made a stately bend. ‘Five and +thirty, good-looking, good figure, good teeth, good voice, good breeding, +well-dressed, dark hair, bold eyes.’ All which Mrs. Sparsit observed in +her womanly way—like the Sultan who put his head in the pail of +water—merely in dipping down and coming up again. + +‘Please to be seated, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Thank you. Allow me.’ He placed a chair for her, but remained himself +carelessly lounging against the table. ‘I left my servant at the railway +looking after the luggage—very heavy train and vast quantity of it in the +van—and strolled on, looking about me. Exceedingly odd place. Will you +allow me to ask you if it’s _always_ as black as this?’ + +‘In general much blacker,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, in her uncompromising +way. + +‘Is it possible! Excuse me: you are not a native, I think?’ + +‘No, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘It was once my good or ill fortune, +as it may be—before I became a widow—to move in a very different sphere. +My husband was a Powler.’ + +‘Beg your pardon, really!’ said the stranger. ‘Was—?’ + +Mrs. Sparsit repeated, ‘A Powler.’ + +‘Powler Family,’ said the stranger, after reflecting a few moments. Mrs. +Sparsit signified assent. The stranger seemed a little more fatigued +than before. + +‘You must be very much bored here?’ was the inference he drew from the +communication. + +‘I am the servant of circumstances, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and I have +long adapted myself to the governing power of my life.’ + +‘Very philosophical,’ returned the stranger, ‘and very exemplary and +laudable, and—’ It seemed to be scarcely worth his while to finish the +sentence, so he played with his watch-chain wearily. + +‘May I be permitted to ask, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘to what I am +indebted for the favour of—’ + +‘Assuredly,’ said the stranger. ‘Much obliged to you for reminding me. +I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to Mr. Bounderby, the banker. +Walking through this extraordinarily black town, while they were getting +dinner ready at the hotel, I asked a fellow whom I met; one of the +working people; who appeared to have been taking a shower-bath of +something fluffy, which I assume to be the raw material—’ + +Mrs. Sparsit inclined her head. + +‘—Raw material—where Mr. Bounderby, the banker, might reside. Upon +which, misled no doubt by the word Banker, he directed me to the Bank. +Fact being, I presume, that Mr. Bounderby the Banker does _not_ reside in +the edifice in which I have the honour of offering this explanation?’ + +‘No, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘he does not.’ + +‘Thank you. I had no intention of delivering my letter at the present +moment, nor have I. But strolling on to the Bank to kill time, and having +the good fortune to observe at the window,’ towards which he languidly +waved his hand, then slightly bowed, ‘a lady of a very superior and +agreeable appearance, I considered that I could not do better than take +the liberty of asking that lady where Mr. Bounderby the Banker _does_ +live. Which I accordingly venture, with all suitable apologies, to do.’ + +The inattention and indolence of his manner were sufficiently relieved, +to Mrs. Sparsit’s thinking, by a certain gallantry at ease, which offered +her homage too. Here he was, for instance, at this moment, all but +sitting on the table, and yet lazily bending over her, as if he +acknowledged an attraction in her that made her charming—in her way. + +‘Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and officially must be,’ said the +stranger, whose lightness and smoothness of speech were pleasant +likewise; suggesting matter far more sensible and humorous than it ever +contained—which was perhaps a shrewd device of the founder of this +numerous sect, whosoever may have been that great man: ‘therefore I may +observe that my letter—here it is—is from the member for this +place—Gradgrind—whom I have had the pleasure of knowing in London.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated that such confirmation was +quite unnecessary, and gave Mr. Bounderby’s address, with all needful +clues and directions in aid. + +‘Thousand thanks,’ said the stranger. ‘Of course you know the Banker +well?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. ‘In my dependent relation towards +him, I have known him ten years.’ + +‘Quite an eternity! I think he married Gradgrind’s daughter?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, suddenly compressing her mouth, ‘he had +that—honour.’ + +‘The lady is quite a philosopher, I am told?’ + +‘Indeed, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘_Is_ she?’ + +‘Excuse my impertinent curiosity,’ pursued the stranger, fluttering over +Mrs. Sparsit’s eyebrows, with a propitiatory air, ‘but you know the +family, and know the world. I am about to know the family, and may have +much to do with them. Is the lady so very alarming? Her father gives +her such a portentously hard-headed reputation, that I have a burning +desire to know. Is she absolutely unapproachable? Repellently and +stunningly clever? I see, by your meaning smile, you think not. You +have poured balm into my anxious soul. As to age, now. Forty? Five and +thirty?’ + +Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. ‘A chit,’ said she. ‘Not twenty when she +was married.’ + +‘I give you my honour, Mrs. Powler,’ returned the stranger, detaching +himself from the table, ‘that I never was so astonished in my life!’ + +It really did seem to impress him, to the utmost extent of his capacity +of being impressed. He looked at his informant for full a quarter of a +minute, and appeared to have the surprise in his mind all the time. ‘I +assure you, Mrs. Powler,’ he then said, much exhausted, ‘that the +father’s manner prepared me for a grim and stony maturity. I am obliged +to you, of all things, for correcting so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse +my intrusion. Many thanks. Good day!’ + +He bowed himself out; and Mrs. Sparsit, hiding in the window curtain, saw +him languishing down the street on the shady side of the way, observed of +all the town. + +‘What do you think of the gentleman, Bitzer?’ she asked the light porter, +when he came to take away. + +‘Spends a deal of money on his dress, ma’am.’ + +‘It must be admitted,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘that it’s very tasteful.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, ‘if that’s worth the money.’ + +‘Besides which, ma’am,’ resumed Bitzer, while he was polishing the table, +‘he looks to me as if he gamed.’ + +‘It’s immoral to game,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘It’s ridiculous, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘because the chances are against +the players.’ + +Whether it was that the heat prevented Mrs. Sparsit from working, or +whether it was that her hand was out, she did no work that night. She +sat at the window, when the sun began to sink behind the smoke; she sat +there, when the smoke was burning red, when the colour faded from it, +when darkness seemed to rise slowly out of the ground, and creep upward, +upward, up to the house-tops, up the church steeple, up to the summits of +the factory chimneys, up to the sky. Without a candle in the room, Mrs. +Sparsit sat at the window, with her hands before her, not thinking much +of the sounds of evening; the whooping of boys, the barking of dogs, the +rumbling of wheels, the steps and voices of passengers, the shrill street +cries, the clogs upon the pavement when it was their hour for going by, +the shutting-up of shop-shutters. Not until the light porter announced +that her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit arouse herself +from her reverie, and convey her dense black eyebrows—by that time +creased with meditation, as if they needed ironing out-up-stairs. + +‘O, you Fool!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, when she was alone at her supper. Whom +she meant, she did not say; but she could scarcely have meant the +sweetbread. + + + + +CHAPTER II +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE + + +THE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the +Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits +more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out +everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for anything? + +Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height were +attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked fine gentlemen; +they pretended that they did not, but they did. They became exhausted in +imitation of them; and they yaw-yawed in their speech like them; and they +served out, with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political +economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There never before was +seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced. + +Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind school, +there was one of a good family and a better appearance, with a happy turn +of humour which had told immensely with the House of Commons on the +occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board of Directors) +view of a railway accident, in which the most careful officers ever +known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by +the finest mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on +the best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded +thirty-two, by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole +system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, +and among the scattered articles unowned, a widow’s cap. And the +honourable member had so tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of +humour) by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any +serious reference to the Coroner’s Inquest, and brought the railway off +with Cheers and Laughter. + +Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than +himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; +and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, +and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored +there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored +everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said +one day, ‘Jem, there’s a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and +they want men. I wonder you don’t go in for statistics.’ Jem, rather +taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as +ready to ‘go in’ for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in. +He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother put it +about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, ‘If you want to bring in, +for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech, +look after my brother Jem, for he’s your man.’ After a few dashes in the +public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages +approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him down to Coketown, to +become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had +last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his +hand; superscribed, ‘Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. +Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.’ + +Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse’s +card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the Hotel. There he +found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so +disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to ‘go in’ for something +else. + +‘My name, sir,’ said his visitor, ‘is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown.’ + +Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) +to have a pleasure he had long expected. + +‘Coketown, sir,’ said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, ‘is not the +kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow +me—or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man—I’ll tell you +something about it before we go any further.’ + +Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. + +‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Bounderby. ‘I don’t promise it. First +of all, you see our smoke. That’s meat and drink to us. It’s the +healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the +lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from +you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster +than we wear ’em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great +Britain and Ireland.’ + +By way of ‘going in’ to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, ‘Mr. +Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of +thinking. On conviction.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Bounderby. ‘Now, you have heard a lot of +talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I’ll +state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and +it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best-paid work there is. +More than that, we couldn’t improve the mills themselves, unless we laid +down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we’re not a-going to do.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.’ + +‘Lastly,’ said Bounderby, ‘as to our Hands. There’s not a Hand in this +town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. +That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. +Now, they’re not a-going—none of ’em—ever to be fed on turtle soup and +venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place.’ + +Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and +refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question. + +‘Why, you see,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, ‘it suits my disposition to have a +full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I +make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. +Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall +respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind’s +letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don’t you deceive +yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit +of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.’ + +If anything could have exalted Jem’s interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would +have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. + +‘So now,’ said Bounderby, ‘we may shake hands on equal terms. I say, +equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of +the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as +proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my +independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, +and I hope you’re pretty well.’ + +The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for +the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with +favour. + +‘Perhaps you know,’ said he, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, I married Tom +Gradgrind’s daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to walk up +town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, ‘you anticipate my dearest wishes.’ + +They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby piloted the +new acquaintance who so strongly contrasted with him, to the private red +brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds, +and the black street door up the two white steps. In the drawing-room of +which mansion, there presently entered to them the most remarkable girl +Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so +careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so +sensitively ashamed of her husband’s braggart humility—from which she +shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it was quite +a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than +in manner. Her features were handsome; but their natural play was so +locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their genuine +expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self-reliant, never at a +loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them +there, and her mind apparently quite alone—it was of no use ‘going in’ +yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration. + +From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the house itself. +There was no mute sign of a woman in the room. No graceful little +adornment, no fanciful little device, however trivial, anywhere expressed +her influence. Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich, +there the room stared at its present occupants, unsoftened and unrelieved +by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood in +the midst of his household gods, so those unrelenting divinities occupied +their places around Mr. Bounderby, and they were worthy of one another, +and well matched. + +‘This, sir,’ said Bounderby, ‘is my wife, Mrs. Bounderby: Tom Gradgrind’s +eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined +your father’s muster-roll. If he is not Tom Gradgrind’s colleague before +long, I believe we shall at least hear of him in connexion with one of +our neighbouring towns. You observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my +junior. I don’t know what she saw in me to marry me, but she saw +something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn’t have married me. She has +lots of expensive knowledge, sir, political and otherwise. If you want +to cram for anything, I should be troubled to recommend you to a better +adviser than Loo Bounderby.’ + +To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more likely to +learn, Mr. Harthouse could never be recommended. + +‘Come!’ said his host. ‘If you’re in the complimentary line, you’ll get +on here, for you’ll meet with no competition. I have never been in the +way of learning compliments myself, and I don’t profess to understand the +art of paying ’em. In fact, despise ’em. But, your bringing-up was +different from mine; mine was a real thing, by George! You’re a +gentleman, and I don’t pretend to be one. I am Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown, and that’s enough for me. However, though I am not influenced +by manners and station, Loo Bounderby may be. She hadn’t my +advantages—disadvantages you would call ’em, but I call ’em advantages—so +you’ll not waste your power, I dare say.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, turning with a smile to Louisa, ‘is a noble +animal in a comparatively natural state, quite free from the harness in +which a conventional hack like myself works.’ + +‘You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,’ she quietly returned. ‘It is +natural that you should.’ + +He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who had seen so much of +the world, and thought, ‘Now, how am I to take this?’ + +‘You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what Mr. Bounderby +has said, to the service of your country. You have made up your mind,’ +said Louisa, still standing before him where she had first stopped—in all +the singular contrariety of her self-possession, and her being obviously +very ill at ease—‘to show the nation the way out of all its +difficulties.’ + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he returned, laughing, ‘upon my honour, no. I will +make no such pretence to you. I have seen a little, here and there, up +and down; I have found it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and +as some confess they have, and some do not; and I am going in for your +respected father’s opinions—really because I have no choice of opinions, +and may as well back them as anything else.’ + +‘Have you none of your own?’ asked Louisa. + +‘I have not so much as the slightest predilection left. I assure you I +attach not the least importance to any opinions. The result of the +varieties of boredom I have undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction +is too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the +subject), that any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other +set, and just as much harm as any other set. There’s an English family +with a charming Italian motto. What will be, will be. It’s the only +truth going!’ + +This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty—a vice so dangerous, so +deadly, and so common—seemed, he observed, a little to impress her in his +favour. He followed up the advantage, by saying in his pleasantest +manner: a manner to which she might attach as much or as little meaning +as she pleased: ‘The side that can prove anything in a line of units, +tens, hundreds, and thousands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford the +most fun, and to give a man the best chance. I am quite as much attached +to it as if I believed it. I am quite ready to go in for it, to the same +extent as if I believed it. And what more could I possibly do, if I did +believe it!’ + +‘You are a singular politician,’ said Louisa. + +‘Pardon me; I have not even that merit. We are the largest party in the +state, I assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if we all fell out of our adopted +ranks and were reviewed together.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting in silence, interposed +here with a project for postponing the family dinner till half-past six, +and taking Mr. James Harthouse in the meantime on a round of visits to +the voting and interesting notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity. +The round of visits was made; and Mr. James Harthouse, with a discreet +use of his blue coaching, came off triumphantly, though with a +considerable accession of boredom. + +In the evening, he found the dinner-table laid for four, but they sat +down only three. It was an appropriate occasion for Mr. Bounderby to +discuss the flavour of the hap’orth of stewed eels he had purchased in +the streets at eight years old; and also of the inferior water, specially +used for laying the dust, with which he had washed down that repast. He +likewise entertained his guest over the soup and fish, with the +calculation that he (Bounderby) had eaten in his youth at least three +horses under the guise of polonies and saveloys. These recitals, Jem, in +a languid manner, received with ‘charming!’ every now and then; and they +probably would have decided him to ‘go in’ for Jerusalem again to-morrow +morning, had he been less curious respecting Louisa. + +‘Is there nothing,’ he thought, glancing at her as she sat at the head of +the table, where her youthful figure, small and slight, but very +graceful, looked as pretty as it looked misplaced; ‘is there nothing that +will move that face?’ + +Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it was, in an unexpected +shape. Tom appeared. She changed as the door opened, and broke into a +beaming smile. + +A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not have thought so much of +it, but that he had wondered so long at her impassive face. She put out +her hand—a pretty little soft hand; and her fingers closed upon her +brother’s, as if she would have carried them to her lips. + +‘Ay, ay?’ thought the visitor. ‘This whelp is the only creature she +cares for. So, so!’ + +The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The appellation was not +flattering, but not unmerited. + +‘When I was your age, young Tom,’ said Bounderby, ‘I was punctual, or I +got no dinner!’ + +‘When you were my age,’ resumed Tom, ‘you hadn’t a wrong balance to get +right, and hadn’t to dress afterwards.’ + +‘Never mind that now,’ said Bounderby. + +‘Well, then,’ grumbled Tom. ‘Don’t begin with me.’ + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, perfectly hearing this under-strain as +it went on; ‘your brother’s face is quite familiar to me. Can I have +seen him abroad? Or at some public school, perhaps?’ + +‘No,’ she resumed, quite interested, ‘he has never been abroad yet, and +was educated here, at home. Tom, love, I am telling Mr. Harthouse that +he never saw you abroad.’ + +‘No such luck, sir,’ said Tom. + +There was little enough in him to brighten her face, for he was a sullen +young fellow, and ungracious in his manner even to her. So much the +greater must have been the solitude of her heart, and her need of some +one on whom to bestow it. ‘So much the more is this whelp the only +creature she has ever cared for,’ thought Mr. James Harthouse, turning it +over and over. ‘So much the more. So much the more.’ + +Both in his sister’s presence, and after she had left the room, the whelp +took no pains to hide his contempt for Mr. Bounderby, whenever he could +indulge it without the observation of that independent man, by making wry +faces, or shutting one eye. Without responding to these telegraphic +communications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged him much in the course of the +evening, and showed an unusual liking for him. At last, when he rose to +return to his hotel, and was a little doubtful whether he knew the way by +night, the whelp immediately proffered his services as guide, and turned +out with him to escort him thither. + + [Picture: Mr. Harthouse dines at the Bounderby’s] + + + + +CHAPTER III +THE WHELP + + +IT was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought up +under one continuous system of unnatural restraint, should be a +hypocrite; but it was certainly the case with Tom. It was very strange +that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own guidance for +five consecutive minutes, should be incapable at last of governing +himself; but so it was with Tom. It was altogether unaccountable that a +young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, +should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of grovelling +sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, was Tom. + +‘Do you smoke?’ asked Mr. James Harthouse, when they came to the hotel. + +‘I believe you!’ said Tom. + +He could do no less than ask Tom up; and Tom could do no less than go up. +What with a cooling drink adapted to the weather, but not so weak as +cool; and what with a rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those parts; +Tom was soon in a highly free and easy state at his end of the sofa, and +more than ever disposed to admire his new friend at the other end. + +Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had been smoking a little while, and +took an observation of his friend. ‘He don’t seem to care about his +dress,’ thought Tom, ‘and yet how capitally he does it. What an easy +swell he is!’ + +Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch Tom’s eye, remarked that he drank +nothing, and filled his glass with his own negligent hand. + +‘Thank’ee,’ said Tom. ‘Thank’ee. Well, Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have +had about a dose of old Bounderby to-night.’ Tom said this with one eye +shut up again, and looking over his glass knowingly, at his entertainer. + +‘A very good fellow indeed!’ returned Mr. James Harthouse. + +‘You think so, don’t you?’ said Tom. And shut up his eye again. + +Mr. James Harthouse smiled; and rising from his end of the sofa, and +lounging with his back against the chimney-piece, so that he stood before +the empty fire-grate as he smoked, in front of Tom and looking down at +him, observed: + +‘What a comical brother-in-law you are!’ + +‘What a comical brother-in-law old Bounderby is, I think you mean,’ said +Tom. + +‘You are a piece of caustic, Tom,’ retorted Mr. James Harthouse. + +There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate with such a +waistcoat; in being called Tom, in such an intimate way, by such a voice; +in being on such off-hand terms so soon, with such a pair of whiskers; +that Tom was uncommonly pleased with himself. + +‘Oh! I don’t care for old Bounderby,’ said he, ‘if you mean that. I +have always called old Bounderby by the same name when I have talked +about him, and I have always thought of him in the same way. I am not +going to begin to be polite now, about old Bounderby. It would be rather +late in the day.’ + +‘Don’t mind me,’ returned James; ‘but take care when his wife is by, you +know.’ + +‘His wife?’ said Tom. ‘My sister Loo? O yes!’ And he laughed, and took +a little more of the cooling drink. + +James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same place and attitude, +smoking his cigar in his own easy way, and looking pleasantly at the +whelp, as if he knew himself to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only +to hover over him, and he must give up his whole soul if required. It +certainly did seem that the whelp yielded to this influence. He looked +at his companion sneakingly, he looked at him admiringly, he looked at +him boldly, and put up one leg on the sofa. + +‘My sister Loo?’ said Tom. ‘_She_ never cared for old Bounderby.’ + +‘That’s the past tense, Tom,’ returned Mr. James Harthouse, striking the +ash from his cigar with his little finger. ‘We are in the present tense, +now.’ + +‘Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, present tense. First person +singular, I do not care; second person singular, thou dost not care; +third person singular, she does not care,’ returned Tom. + +‘Good! Very quaint!’ said his friend. ‘Though you don’t mean it.’ + +‘But I _do_ mean it,’ cried Tom. ‘Upon my honour! Why, you won’t tell +me, Mr. Harthouse, that you really suppose my sister Loo does care for +old Bounderby.’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ returned the other, ‘what am I bound to suppose, when I +find two married people living in harmony and happiness?’ + +Tom had by this time got both his legs on the sofa. If his second leg +had not been already there when he was called a dear fellow, he would +have put it up at that great stage of the conversation. Feeling it +necessary to do something then, he stretched himself out at greater +length, and, reclining with the back of his head on the end of the sofa, +and smoking with an infinite assumption of negligence, turned his common +face, and not too sober eyes, towards the face looking down upon him so +carelessly yet so potently. + +‘You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, ‘and therefore, you +needn’t be surprised that Loo married old Bounderby. She never had a +lover, and the governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.’ + +‘Very dutiful in your interesting sister,’ said Mr. James Harthouse. + +‘Yes, but she wouldn’t have been as dutiful, and it would not have come +off as easily,’ returned the whelp, ‘if it hadn’t been for me.’ + +The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows; but the whelp was obliged to go +on. + +‘_I_ persuaded her,’ he said, with an edifying air of superiority. ‘I +was stuck into old Bounderby’s bank (where I never wanted to be), and I +knew I should get into scrapes there, if she put old Bounderby’s pipe +out; so I told her my wishes, and she came into them. She would do +anything for me. It was very game of her, wasn’t it?’ + +‘It was charming, Tom!’ + +‘Not that it was altogether so important to her as it was to me,’ +continued Tom coolly, ‘because my liberty and comfort, and perhaps my +getting on, depended on it; and she had no other lover, and staying at +home was like staying in jail—especially when I was gone. It wasn’t as +if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby; but still it was a good +thing in her.’ + +‘Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so placidly.’ + +‘Oh,’ returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, ‘she’s a regular girl. +A girl can get on anywhere. She has settled down to the life, and _she_ +don’t mind. It does just as well as another. Besides, though Loo is a +girl, she’s not a common sort of girl. She can shut herself up within +herself, and think—as I have often known her sit and watch the fire—for +an hour at a stretch.’ + +‘Ay, ay? Has resources of her own,’ said Harthouse, smoking quietly. + +‘Not so much of that as you may suppose,’ returned Tom; ‘for our governor +had her crammed with all sorts of dry bones and sawdust. It’s his +system.’ + +‘Formed his daughter on his own model?’ suggested Harthouse. + +‘His daughter? Ah! and everybody else. Why, he formed Me that way!’ +said Tom. + +‘Impossible!’ + +‘He did, though,’ said Tom, shaking his head. ‘I mean to say, Mr. +Harthouse, that when I first left home and went to old Bounderby’s, I was +as flat as a warming-pan, and knew no more about life, than any oyster +does.’ + +‘Come, Tom! I can hardly believe that. A joke’s a joke.’ + +‘Upon my soul!’ said the whelp. ‘I am serious; I am indeed!’ He smoked +with great gravity and dignity for a little while, and then added, in a +highly complacent tone, ‘Oh! I have picked up a little since. I don’t +deny that. But I have done it myself; no thanks to the governor.’ + +‘And your intelligent sister?’ + +‘My intelligent sister is about where she was. She used to complain to +me that she had nothing to fall back upon, that girls usually fall back +upon; and I don’t see how she is to have got over that since. But _she_ +don’t mind,’ he sagaciously added, puffing at his cigar again. ‘Girls +can always get on, somehow.’ + +‘Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, for Mr. Bounderby’s address, I +found an ancient lady there, who seems to entertain great admiration for +your sister,’ observed Mr. James Harthouse, throwing away the last small +remnant of the cigar he had now smoked out. + +‘Mother Sparsit!’ said Tom. ‘What! you have seen her already, have you?’ + +His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar out of his mouth, to shut up his +eye (which had grown rather unmanageable) with the greater expression, +and to tap his nose several times with his finger. + +‘Mother Sparsit’s feeling for Loo is more than admiration, I should +think,’ said Tom. ‘Say affection and devotion. Mother Sparsit never set +her cap at Bounderby when he was a bachelor. Oh no!’ + +These were the last words spoken by the whelp, before a giddy drowsiness +came upon him, followed by complete oblivion. He was roused from the +latter state by an uneasy dream of being stirred up with a boot, and also +of a voice saying: ‘Come, it’s late. Be off!’ + +‘Well!’ he said, scrambling from the sofa. ‘I must take my leave of you +though. I say. Yours is very good tobacco. But it’s too mild.’ + +‘Yes, it’s too mild,’ returned his entertainer. + +‘It’s—it’s ridiculously mild,’ said Tom. ‘Where’s the door! Good +night!’ + +He had another odd dream of being taken by a waiter through a mist, +which, after giving him some trouble and difficulty, resolved itself into +the main street, in which he stood alone. He then walked home pretty +easily, though not yet free from an impression of the presence and +influence of his new friend—as if he were lounging somewhere in the air, +in the same negligent attitude, regarding him with the same look. + +The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense of what he +had done that night, and had been less of a whelp and more of a brother, +he might have turned short on the road, might have gone down to the +ill-smelling river that was dyed black, might have gone to bed in it for +good and all, and have curtained his head for ever with its filthy +waters. + + + + +CHAPTER IV +MEN AND BROTHERS + + +‘OH, my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my friends +and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a grinding +despotism! Oh, my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and +fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come, when we must rally round +one another as One united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors +that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families, upon the +sweat of our brows, upon the labour of our hands, upon the strength of +our sinews, upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon +the holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood!’ + +‘Good!’ ‘Hear, hear, hear!’ ‘Hurrah!’ and other cries, arose in many +voices from various parts of the densely crowded and suffocatingly close +Hall, in which the orator, perched on a stage, delivered himself of this +and what other froth and fume he had in him. He had declaimed himself +into a violent heat, and was as hoarse as he was hot. By dint of roaring +at the top of his voice under a flaring gaslight, clenching his fists, +knitting his brows, setting his teeth, and pounding with his arms, he had +taken so much out of himself by this time, that he was brought to a stop, +and called for a glass of water. + +As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with his drink of +water, the comparison between the orator and the crowd of attentive faces +turned towards him, was extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him by +Nature’s evidence, he was above the mass in very little but the stage on +which he stood. In many great respects he was essentially below them. +He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; +he substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe +solid sense. An ill-made, high-shouldered man, with lowering brows, and +his features crushed into an habitually sour expression, he contrasted +most unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of his +hearers in their plain working clothes. Strange as it always is to +consider any assembly in the act of submissively resigning itself to the +dreariness of some complacent person, lord or commoner, whom +three-fourths of it could, by no human means, raise out of the slough of +inanity to their own intellectual level, it was particularly strange, and +it was even particularly affecting, to see this crowd of earnest faces, +whose honesty in the main no competent observer free from bias could +doubt, so agitated by such a leader. + +Good! Hear, hear! Hurrah! The eagerness both of attention and +intention, exhibited in all the countenances, made them a most impressive +sight. There was no carelessness, no languor, no idle curiosity; none of +the many shades of indifference to be seen in all other assemblies, +visible for one moment there. That every man felt his condition to be, +somehow or other, worse than it might be; that every man considered it +incumbent on him to join the rest, towards the making of it better; that +every man felt his only hope to be in his allying himself to the comrades +by whom he was surrounded; and that in this belief, right or wrong +(unhappily wrong then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, +faithfully in earnest; must have been as plain to any one who chose to +see what was there, as the bare beams of the roof and the whitened brick +walls. Nor could any such spectator fail to know in his own breast, that +these men, through their very delusions, showed great qualities, +susceptible of being turned to the happiest and best account; and that to +pretend (on the strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried) +that they went astray wholly without cause, and of their own irrational +wills, was to pretend that there could be smoke without fire, death +without birth, harvest without seed, anything or everything produced from +nothing. + +The orator having refreshed himself, wiped his corrugated forehead from +left to right several times with his handkerchief folded into a pad, and +concentrated all his revived forces, in a sneer of great disdain and +bitterness. + +‘But oh, my friends and brothers! Oh, men and Englishmen, the +down-trodden operatives of Coketown! What shall we say of that man—that +working-man, that I should find it necessary so to libel the glorious +name—who, being practically and well acquainted with the grievances and +wrongs of you, the injured pith and marrow of this land, and having heard +you, with a noble and majestic unanimity that will make Tyrants tremble, +resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the United Aggregate Tribunal, +and to abide by the injunctions issued by that body for your benefit, +whatever they may be—what, I ask you, will you say of that working-man, +since such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his +post, and sells his flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and a +craven and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to make to you +the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold himself aloof, and +will _not_ be one of those associated in the gallant stand for Freedom +and for Right?’ + +The assembly was divided at this point. There were some groans and +hisses, but the general sense of honour was much too strong for the +condemnation of a man unheard. ‘Be sure you’re right, Slackbridge!’ +‘Put him up!’ ‘Let’s hear him!’ Such things were said on many sides. +Finally, one strong voice called out, ‘Is the man heer? If the man’s +heer, Slackbridge, let’s hear the man himseln, ’stead o’ yo.’ Which was +received with a round of applause. + +Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a withering smile; and, +holding out his right hand at arm’s length (as the manner of all +Slackbridges is), to still the thundering sea, waited until there was a +profound silence. + +‘Oh, my friends and fellow-men!’ said Slackbridge then, shaking his head +with violent scorn, ‘I do not wonder that you, the prostrate sons of +labour, are incredulous of the existence of such a man. But he who sold +his birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and Judas Iscariot existed, +and Castlereagh existed, and this man exists!’ + +Here, a brief press and confusion near the stage, ended in the man +himself standing at the orator’s side before the concourse. He was pale +and a little moved in the face—his lips especially showed it; but he +stood quiet, with his left hand at his chin, waiting to be heard. There +was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and this functionary now took +the case into his own hands. + +‘My friends,’ said he, ‘by virtue o’ my office as your president, I askes +o’ our friend Slackbridge, who may be a little over hetter in this +business, to take his seat, whiles this man Stephen Blackpool is heern. +You all know this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him awlung o’ his +misfort’ns, and his good name.’ + +With that, the chairman shook him frankly by the hand, and sat down +again. Slackbridge likewise sat down, wiping his hot forehead—always +from left to right, and never the reverse way. + +‘My friends,’ Stephen began, in the midst of a dead calm; ‘I ha’ hed +what’s been spok’n o’ me, and ’tis lickly that I shan’t mend it. But I’d +liefer you’d hearn the truth concernin myseln, fro my lips than fro onny +other man’s, though I never cud’n speak afore so monny, wi’out bein +moydert and muddled.’ + +Slackbridge shook his head as if he would shake it off, in his +bitterness. + +‘I’m th’ one single Hand in Bounderby’s mill, o’ a’ the men theer, as +don’t coom in wi’ th’ proposed reg’lations. I canna coom in wi’ ’em. My +friends, I doubt their doin’ yo onny good. Licker they’ll do yo hurt.’ + +Slackbridge laughed, folded his arms, and frowned sarcastically. + +‘But ’t an’t sommuch for that as I stands out. If that were aw, I’d coom +in wi’ th’ rest. But I ha’ my reasons—mine, yo see—for being hindered; +not on’y now, but awlus—awlus—life long!’ + +Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside him, gnashing and tearing. ‘Oh, +my friends, what but this did I tell you? Oh, my fellow-countrymen, what +warning but this did I give you? And how shows this recreant conduct in +a man on whom unequal laws are known to have fallen heavy? Oh, you +Englishmen, I ask you how does this subornation show in one of +yourselves, who is thus consenting to his own undoing and to yours, and +to your children’s and your children’s children’s?’ + +There was some applause, and some crying of Shame upon the man; but the +greater part of the audience were quiet. They looked at Stephen’s worn +face, rendered more pathetic by the homely emotions it evinced; and, in +the kindness of their nature, they were more sorry than indignant. + +‘’Tis this Delegate’s trade for t’ speak,’ said Stephen, ‘an’ he’s paid +for ’t, an’ he knows his work. Let him keep to ’t. Let him give no heed +to what I ha had’n to bear. That’s not for him. That’s not for nobbody +but me.’ + +There was a propriety, not to say a dignity in these words, that made the +hearers yet more quiet and attentive. The same strong voice called out, +‘Slackbridge, let the man be heern, and howd thee tongue!’ Then the +place was wonderfully still. + +‘My brothers,’ said Stephen, whose low voice was distinctly heard, ‘and +my fellow-workmen—for that yo are to me, though not, as I knows on, to +this delegate here—I ha but a word to sen, and I could sen nommore if I +was to speak till Strike o’ day. I know weel, aw what’s afore me. I +know weel that yo aw resolve to ha nommore ado wi’ a man who is not wi’ +yo in this matther. I know weel that if I was a lyin parisht i’ th’ +road, yo’d feel it right to pass me by, as a forrenner and stranger. +What I ha getn, I mun mak th’ best on.’ + +‘Stephen Blackpool,’ said the chairman, rising, ‘think on ’t agen. Think +on ’t once agen, lad, afore thou’rt shunned by aw owd friends.’ + +There was an universal murmur to the same effect, though no man +articulated a word. Every eye was fixed on Stephen’s face. To repent of +his determination, would be to take a load from all their minds. He +looked around him, and knew that it was so. Not a grain of anger with +them was in his heart; he knew them, far below their surface weaknesses +and misconceptions, as no one but their fellow-labourer could. + +‘I ha thowt on ’t, above a bit, sir. I simply canna coom in. I mun go +th’ way as lays afore me. I mun tak my leave o’ aw heer.’ + +He made a sort of reverence to them by holding up his arms, and stood for +the moment in that attitude; not speaking until they slowly dropped at +his sides. + +‘Monny’s the pleasant word as soom heer has spok’n wi’ me; monny’s the +face I see heer, as I first seen when I were yoong and lighter heart’n +than now. I ha’ never had no fratch afore, sin ever I were born, wi’ any +o’ my like; Gonnows I ha’ none now that’s o’ my makin’. Yo’ll ca’ me +traitor and that—yo I mean t’ say,’ addressing Slackbridge, ‘but ’tis +easier to ca’ than mak’ out. So let be.’ + +He had moved away a pace or two to come down from the platform, when he +remembered something he had not said, and returned again. + +‘Haply,’ he said, turning his furrowed face slowly about, that he might +as it were individually address the whole audience, those both near and +distant; ‘haply, when this question has been tak’n up and discoosed, +there’ll be a threat to turn out if I’m let to work among yo. I hope I +shall die ere ever such a time cooms, and I shall work solitary among yo +unless it cooms—truly, I mun do ’t, my friends; not to brave yo, but to +live. I ha nobbut work to live by; and wheerever can I go, I who ha +worked sin I were no heighth at aw, in Coketown heer? I mak’ no +complaints o’ bein turned to the wa’, o’ bein outcasten and overlooken +fro this time forrard, but hope I shall be let to work. If there is any +right for me at aw, my friends, I think ’tis that.’ + +Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was audible in the building, but the +slight rustle of men moving a little apart, all along the centre of the +room, to open a means of passing out, to the man with whom they had all +bound themselves to renounce companionship. Looking at no one, and going +his way with a lowly steadiness upon him that asserted nothing and sought +nothing, Old Stephen, with all his troubles on his head, left the scene. + +Then Slackbridge, who had kept his oratorical arm extended during the +going out, as if he were repressing with infinite solicitude and by a +wonderful moral power the vehement passions of the multitude, applied +himself to raising their spirits. Had not the Roman Brutus, oh, my +British countrymen, condemned his son to death; and had not the Spartan +mothers, oh my soon to be victorious friends, driven their flying +children on the points of their enemies’ swords? Then was it not the +sacred duty of the men of Coketown, with forefathers before them, an +admiring world in company with them, and a posterity to come after them, +to hurl out traitors from the tents they had pitched in a sacred and a +God-like cause? The winds of heaven answered Yes; and bore Yes, east, +west, north, and south. And consequently three cheers for the United +Aggregate Tribunal! + +Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. The multitude of +doubtful faces (a little conscience-stricken) brightened at the sound, +and took it up. Private feeling must yield to the common cause. Hurrah! +The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when the assembly dispersed. + +Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the +life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The stranger in the land who +looks into ten thousand faces for some answering look and never finds it, +is in cheering society as compared with him who passes ten averted faces +daily, that were once the countenances of friends. Such experience was +to be Stephen’s now, in every waking moment of his life; at his work, on +his way to it and from it, at his door, at his window, everywhere. By +general consent, they even avoided that side of the street on which he +habitually walked; and left it, of all the working men, to him only. + +He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but little +with other men, and used to companionship with his own thoughts. He had +never known before the strength of the want in his heart for the frequent +recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or the immense amount of relief +that had been poured into it by drops through such small means. It was +even harder than he could have believed possible, to separate in his own +conscience his abandonment by all his fellows from a baseless sense of +shame and disgrace. + +The first four days of his endurance were days so long and heavy, that he +began to be appalled by the prospect before him. Not only did he see no +Rachael all the time, but he avoided every chance of seeing her; for, +although he knew that the prohibition did not yet formally extend to the +women working in the factories, he found that some of them with whom he +was acquainted were changed to him, and he feared to try others, and +dreaded that Rachael might be even singled out from the rest if she were +seen in his company. So, he had been quite alone during the four days, +and had spoken to no one, when, as he was leaving his work at night, a +young man of a very light complexion accosted him in the street. + +‘Your name’s Blackpool, ain’t it?’ said the young man. + +Stephen coloured to find himself with his hat in his hand, in his +gratitude for being spoken to, or in the suddenness of it, or both. He +made a feint of adjusting the lining, and said, ‘Yes.’ + +‘You are the Hand they have sent to Coventry, I mean?’ said Bitzer, the +very light young man in question. + +Stephen answered ‘Yes,’ again. + +‘I supposed so, from their all appearing to keep away from you. Mr. +Bounderby wants to speak to you. You know his house, don’t you?’ + +Stephen said ‘Yes,’ again. + +‘Then go straight up there, will you?’ said Bitzer. ‘You’re expected, +and have only to tell the servant it’s you. I belong to the Bank; so, if +you go straight up without me (I was sent to fetch you), you’ll save me a +walk.’ + +Stephen, whose way had been in the contrary direction, turned about, and +betook himself as in duty bound, to the red brick castle of the giant +Bounderby. + + + + +CHAPTER V +MEN AND MASTERS + + +‘WELL, Stephen,’ said Bounderby, in his windy manner, ‘what’s this I +hear? What have these pests of the earth been doing to _you_? Come in, +and speak up.’ + +It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden. A tea-table was +set out; and Mr. Bounderby’s young wife, and her brother, and a great +gentleman from London, were present. To whom Stephen made his obeisance, +closing the door and standing near it, with his hat in his hand. + +‘This is the man I was telling you about, Harthouse,’ said Mr. Bounderby. +The gentleman he addressed, who was talking to Mrs. Bounderby on the +sofa, got up, saying in an indolent way, ‘Oh really?’ and dawdled to the +hearthrug where Mr. Bounderby stood. + +‘Now,’ said Bounderby, ‘speak up!’ + +After the four days he had passed, this address fell rudely and +discordantly on Stephen’s ear. Besides being a rough handling of his +wounded mind, it seemed to assume that he really was the self-interested +deserter he had been called. + +‘What were it, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘as yo were pleased to want wi’ me?’ + +‘Why, I have told you,’ returned Bounderby. ‘Speak up like a man, since +you are a man, and tell us about yourself and this Combination.’ + +‘Wi’ yor pardon, sir,’ said Stephen Blackpool, ‘I ha’ nowt to sen about +it.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a Wind, finding something +in his way here, began to blow at it directly. + +‘Now, look here, Harthouse,’ said he, ‘here’s a specimen of ’em. When +this man was here once before, I warned this man against the mischievous +strangers who are always about—and who ought to be hanged wherever they +are found—and I told this man that he was going in the wrong direction. +Now, would you believe it, that although they have put this mark upon +him, he is such a slave to them still, that he’s afraid to open his lips +about them?’ + +‘I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir; not as I was fearfo’ o’ openin’ my +lips.’ + +‘You said! Ah! _I_ know what you said; more than that, I know what you +mean, you see. Not always the same thing, by the Lord Harry! Quite +different things. You had better tell us at once, that that fellow +Slackbridge is not in the town, stirring up the people to mutiny; and +that he is not a regular qualified leader of the people: that is, a most +confounded scoundrel. You had better tell us so at once; you can’t +deceive me. You want to tell us so. Why don’t you?’ + +‘I’m as sooary as yo, sir, when the people’s leaders is bad,’ said +Stephen, shaking his head. ‘They taks such as offers. Haply ’tis na’ +the sma’est o’ their misfortuns when they can get no better.’ + +The wind began to get boisterous. + +‘Now, you’ll think this pretty well, Harthouse,’ said Mr. Bounderby. +‘You’ll think this tolerably strong. You’ll say, upon my soul this is a +tidy specimen of what my friends have to deal with; but this is nothing, +sir! You shall hear me ask this man a question. Pray, Mr. +Blackpool’—wind springing up very fast—‘may I take the liberty of asking +you how it happens that you refused to be in this Combination?’ + +‘How ’t happens?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the arms of his coat, and +jerking his head and shutting his eyes in confidence with the opposite +wall: ‘how it happens.’ + +‘I’d leefer not coom to ’t, sir; but sin you put th’ question—an’ not +want’n t’ be ill-manner’n—I’ll answer. I ha passed a promess.’ + +‘Not to me, you know,’ said Bounderby. (Gusty weather with deceitful +calms. One now prevailing.) + +‘O no, sir. Not to yo.’ + +‘As for me, any consideration for me has had just nothing at all to do +with it,’ said Bounderby, still in confidence with the wall. ‘If only +Josiah Bounderby of Coketown had been in question, you would have joined +and made no bones about it?’ + +‘Why yes, sir. ’Tis true.’ + +‘Though he knows,’ said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing a gale, ‘that there +are a set of rascals and rebels whom transportation is too good for! +Now, Mr. Harthouse, you have been knocking about in the world some time. +Did you ever meet with anything like that man out of this blessed +country?’ And Mr. Bounderby pointed him out for inspection, with an +angry finger. + +‘Nay, ma’am,’ said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against the +words that had been used, and instinctively addressing himself to Louisa, +after glancing at her face. ‘Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt o’ th’ +kind, ma’am, nowt o’ th’ kind. They’ve not doon me a kindness, ma’am, as +I know and feel. But there’s not a dozen men amoong ’em, ma’am—a dozen? +Not six—but what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest and by +himseln. God forbid as I, that ha’ known, and had’n experience o’ these +men aw my life—I, that ha’ ett’n an’ droonken wi’ ’em, an’ seet’n wi’ +’em, and toil’n wi’ ’em, and lov’n ’em, should fail fur to stan by ’em +wi’ the truth, let ’em ha’ doon to me what they may!’ + +He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and character—deepened +perhaps by a proud consciousness that he was faithful to his class under +all their mistrust; but he fully remembered where he was, and did not +even raise his voice. + +‘No, ma’am, no. They’re true to one another, faithfo’ to one another, +’fectionate to one another, e’en to death. Be poor amoong ’em, be sick +amoong ’em, grieve amoong ’em for onny o’ th’ monny causes that carries +grief to the poor man’s door, an’ they’ll be tender wi’ yo, gentle wi’ +yo, comfortable wi’ yo, Chrisen wi’ yo. Be sure o’ that, ma’am. They’d +be riven to bits, ere ever they’d be different.’ + +‘In short,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘it’s because they are so full of virtues +that they have turned you adrift. Go through with it while you are about +it. Out with it.’ + +‘How ’tis, ma’am,’ resumed Stephen, appearing still to find his natural +refuge in Louisa’s face, ‘that what is best in us fok, seems to turn us +most to trouble an’ misfort’n an’ mistake, I dunno. But ’tis so. I know +’tis, as I know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke. We’re patient +too, an’ wants in general to do right. An’ I canna think the fawt is aw +wi’ us.’ + +‘Now, my friend,’ said Mr. Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated +more, quite unconscious of it though he was, than by seeming to appeal to +any one else, ‘if you will favour me with your attention for half a +minute, I should like to have a word or two with you. You said just now, +that you had nothing to tell us about this business. You are quite sure +of that before we go any further.’ + +‘Sir, I am sure on ’t.’ + +‘Here’s a gentleman from London present,’ Mr. Bounderby made a backhanded +point at Mr. James Harthouse with his thumb, ‘a Parliament gentleman. I +should like him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and me, +instead of taking the substance of it—for I know precious well, +beforehand, what it will be; nobody knows better than I do, take +notice!—instead of receiving it on trust from my mouth.’ + +Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed a rather +more troubled mind than usual. He turned his eyes involuntarily to his +former refuge, but at a look from that quarter (expressive though +instantaneous) he settled them on Mr. Bounderby’s face. + +‘Now, what do you complain of?’ asked Mr. Bounderby. + +‘I ha’ not coom here, sir,’ Stephen reminded him, ‘to complain. I coom +for that I were sent for.’ + +‘What,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, ‘do you people, in a +general way, complain of?’ + +Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment, and +then seemed to make up his mind. + +‘Sir, I were never good at showin o ’t, though I ha had’n my share in +feeling o ’t. ’Deed we are in a muddle, sir. Look round town—so rich as +’tis—and see the numbers o’ people as has been broughten into bein heer, +fur to weave, an’ to card, an’ to piece out a livin’, aw the same one +way, somehows, ’twixt their cradles and their graves. Look how we live, +an’ wheer we live, an’ in what numbers, an’ by what chances, and wi’ what +sameness; and look how the mills is awlus a goin, and how they never +works us no nigher to ony dis’ant object—ceptin awlus, Death. Look how +you considers of us, and writes of us, and talks of us, and goes up wi’ +yor deputations to Secretaries o’ State ’bout us, and how yo are awlus +right, and how we are awlus wrong, and never had’n no reason in us sin +ever we were born. Look how this ha growen an’ growen, sir, bigger an’ +bigger, broader an’ broader, harder an’ harder, fro year to year, fro +generation unto generation. Who can look on ’t, sir, and fairly tell a +man ’tis not a muddle?’ + +‘Of course,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Now perhaps you’ll let the gentleman +know, how you would set this muddle (as you’re so fond of calling it) to +rights.’ + +‘I donno, sir. I canna be expecten to ’t. ’Tis not me as should be +looken to for that, sir. ’Tis them as is put ower me, and ower aw the +rest of us. What do they tak upon themseln, sir, if not to do’t?’ + +‘I’ll tell you something towards it, at any rate,’ returned Mr. +Bounderby. ‘We will make an example of half a dozen Slackbridges. We’ll +indict the blackguards for felony, and get ’em shipped off to penal +settlements.’ + +Stephen gravely shook his head. + +‘Don’t tell me we won’t, man,’ said Mr. Bounderby, by this time blowing a +hurricane, ‘because we will, I tell you!’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence of absolute certainty, +‘if yo was t’ tak a hundred Slackbridges—aw as there is, and aw the +number ten times towd—an’ was t’ sew ’em up in separate sacks, an’ sink +’em in the deepest ocean as were made ere ever dry land coom to be, yo’d +leave the muddle just wheer ’tis. Mischeevous strangers!’ said Stephen, +with an anxious smile; ‘when ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever we can +call to mind, o’ th’ mischeevous strangers! ’Tis not by _them_ the +trouble’s made, sir. ’Tis not wi’ _them_ ’t commences. I ha no favour +for ’em—I ha no reason to favour ’em—but ’tis hopeless and useless to +dream o’ takin them fro their trade, ’stead o’ takin their trade fro +them! Aw that’s now about me in this room were heer afore I coom, an’ +will be heer when I am gone. Put that clock aboard a ship an’ pack it +off to Norfolk Island, an’ the time will go on just the same. So ’tis +wi’ Slackbridge every bit.’ + +Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he observed a cautionary +movement of her eyes towards the door. Stepping back, he put his hand +upon the lock. But he had not spoken out of his own will and desire; and +he felt it in his heart a noble return for his late injurious treatment +to be faithful to the last to those who had repudiated him. He stayed to +finish what was in his mind. + +‘Sir, I canna, wi’ my little learning an’ my common way, tell the +genelman what will better aw this—though some working men o’ this town +could, above my powers—but I can tell him what I know will never do ’t. +The strong hand will never do ’t. Vict’ry and triumph will never do ’t. +Agreeing fur to mak one side unnat’rally awlus and for ever right, and +toother side unnat’rally awlus and for ever wrong, will never, never do +’t. Nor yet lettin alone will never do ’t. Let thousands upon thousands +alone, aw leading the like lives and aw faw’en into the like muddle, and +they will be as one, and yo will be as anoother, wi’ a black unpassable +world betwixt yo, just as long or short a time as sich-like misery can +last. Not drawin nigh to fok, wi’ kindness and patience an’ cheery ways, +that so draws nigh to one another in their monny troubles, and so +cherishes one another in their distresses wi’ what they need +themseln—like, I humbly believe, as no people the genelman ha seen in aw +his travels can beat—will never do ’t till th’ Sun turns t’ ice. Most o’ +aw, rating ’em as so much Power, and reg’latin ’em as if they was figures +in a soom, or machines: wi’out loves and likens, wi’out memories and +inclinations, wi’out souls to weary and souls to hope—when aw goes quiet, +draggin on wi’ ’em as if they’d nowt o’ th’ kind, and when aw goes +onquiet, reproachin ’em for their want o’ sitch humanly feelins in their +dealins wi’ yo—this will never do ’t, sir, till God’s work is onmade.’ + +Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting to know if anything +more were expected of him. + +‘Just stop a moment,’ said Mr. Bounderby, excessively red in the face. +‘I told you, the last time you were here with a grievance, that you had +better turn about and come out of that. And I also told you, if you +remember, that I was up to the gold spoon look-out.’ + +‘I were not up to ’t myseln, sir; I do assure yo.’ + +‘Now it’s clear to me,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘that you are one of those +chaps who have always got a grievance. And you go about, sowing it and +raising crops. That’s the business of _your_ life, my friend.’ + +Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed he had other +business to do for his life. + +‘You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-conditioned chap, you see,’ said +Mr. Bounderby, ‘that even your own Union, the men who know you best, will +have nothing to do with you. I never thought those fellows could be +right in anything; but I tell you what! I so far go along with them for +a novelty, that _I_’ll have nothing to do with you either.’ + +Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face. + +‘You can finish off what you’re at,’ said Mr. Bounderby, with a meaning +nod, ‘and then go elsewhere.’ + +‘Sir, yo know weel,’ said Stephen expressively, ‘that if I canna get work +wi’ yo, I canna get it elsewheer.’ + +The reply was, ‘What I know, I know; and what you know, you know. I have +no more to say about it.’ + +Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were raised to his no more; +therefore, with a sigh, and saying, barely above his breath, ‘Heaven help +us aw in this world!’ he departed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI +FADING AWAY + + +IT was falling dark when Stephen came out of Mr. Bounderby’s house. The +shadows of night had gathered so fast, that he did not look about him +when he closed the door, but plodded straight along the street. Nothing +was further from his thoughts than the curious old woman he had +encountered on his previous visit to the same house, when he heard a step +behind him that he knew, and turning, saw her in Rachael’s company. + +He saw Rachael first, as he had heard her only. + +‘Ah, Rachael, my dear! Missus, thou wi’ her!’ + +‘Well, and now you are surprised to be sure, and with reason I must say,’ +the old woman returned. ‘Here I am again, you see.’ + +‘But how wi’ Rachael?’ said Stephen, falling into their step, walking +between them, and looking from the one to the other. + +‘Why, I come to be with this good lass pretty much as I came to be with +you,’ said the old woman, cheerfully, taking the reply upon herself. ‘My +visiting time is later this year than usual, for I have been rather +troubled with shortness of breath, and so put it off till the weather was +fine and warm. For the same reason I don’t make all my journey in one +day, but divide it into two days, and get a bed to-night at the +Travellers’ Coffee House down by the railroad (a nice clean house), and +go back Parliamentary, at six in the morning. Well, but what has this to +do with this good lass, says you? I’m going to tell you. I have heard +of Mr. Bounderby being married. I read it in the paper, where it looked +grand—oh, it looked fine!’ the old woman dwelt on it with strange +enthusiasm: ‘and I want to see his wife. I have never seen her yet. +Now, if you’ll believe me, she hasn’t come out of that house since noon +to-day. So not to give her up too easily, I was waiting about, a little +last bit more, when I passed close to this good lass two or three times; +and her face being so friendly I spoke to her, and she spoke to me. +There!’ said the old woman to Stephen, ‘you can make all the rest out for +yourself now, a deal shorter than I can, I dare say!’ + +Once again, Stephen had to conquer an instinctive propensity to dislike +this old woman, though her manner was as honest and simple as a manner +possibly could be. With a gentleness that was as natural to him as he +knew it to be to Rachael, he pursued the subject that interested her in +her old age. + +‘Well, missus,’ said he, ‘I ha seen the lady, and she were young and +hansom. Wi’ fine dark thinkin eyes, and a still way, Rachael, as I ha +never seen the like on.’ + +‘Young and handsome. Yes!’ cried the old woman, quite delighted. ‘As +bonny as a rose! And what a happy wife!’ + +‘Aye, missus, I suppose she be,’ said Stephen. But with a doubtful +glance at Rachael. + +‘Suppose she be? She must be. She’s your master’s wife,’ returned the +old woman. + +Stephen nodded assent. ‘Though as to master,’ said he, glancing again at +Rachael, ‘not master onny more. That’s aw enden ’twixt him and me.’ + +‘Have you left his work, Stephen?’ asked Rachael, anxiously and quickly. + +‘Why, Rachael,’ he replied, ‘whether I ha lef’n his work, or whether his +work ha lef’n me, cooms t’ th’ same. His work and me are parted. ’Tis +as weel so—better, I were thinkin when yo coom up wi’ me. It would ha +brought’n trouble upon trouble if I had stayed theer. Haply ’tis a +kindness to monny that I go; haply ’tis a kindness to myseln; anyways it +mun be done. I mun turn my face fro Coketown fur th’ time, and seek a +fort’n, dear, by beginnin fresh.’ + +‘Where will you go, Stephen?’ + +‘I donno t’night,’ said he, lifting off his hat, and smoothing his thin +hair with the flat of his hand. ‘But I’m not goin t’night, Rachael, nor +yet t’morrow. ’Tan’t easy overmuch t’ know wheer t’ turn, but a good +heart will coom to me.’ + +Herein, too, the sense of even thinking unselfishly aided him. Before he +had so much as closed Mr. Bounderby’s door, he had reflected that at +least his being obliged to go away was good for her, as it would save her +from the chance of being brought into question for not withdrawing from +him. Though it would cost him a hard pang to leave her, and though he +could think of no similar place in which his condemnation would not +pursue him, perhaps it was almost a relief to be forced away from the +endurance of the last four days, even to unknown difficulties and +distresses. + +So he said, with truth, ‘I’m more leetsome, Rachael, under ’t, than I +could’n ha believed.’ It was not her part to make his burden heavier. +She answered with her comforting smile, and the three walked on together. + +Age, especially when it strives to be self-reliant and cheerful, finds +much consideration among the poor. The old woman was so decent and +contented, and made so light of her infirmities, though they had +increased upon her since her former interview with Stephen, that they +both took an interest in her. She was too sprightly to allow of their +walking at a slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be +talked to, and very willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to +their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than ever. + +‘Come to my poor place, missus,’ said Stephen, ‘and tak a coop o’ tea. +Rachael will coom then; and arterwards I’ll see thee safe t’ thy +Travellers’ lodgin. ’T may be long, Rachael, ere ever I ha th’ chance o’ +thy coompany agen.’ + +They complied, and the three went on to the house where he lodged. When +they turned into a narrow street, Stephen glanced at his window with a +dread that always haunted his desolate home; but it was open, as he had +left it, and no one was there. The evil spirit of his life had flitted +away again, months ago, and he had heard no more of her since. The only +evidence of her last return now, were the scantier moveables in his room, +and the grayer hair upon his head. + +He lighted a candle, set out his little tea-board, got hot water from +below, and brought in small portions of tea and sugar, a loaf, and some +butter from the nearest shop. The bread was new and crusty, the butter +fresh, and the sugar lump, of course—in fulfilment of the standard +testimony of the Coketown magnates, that these people lived like princes, +sir. Rachael made the tea (so large a party necessitated the borrowing +of a cup), and the visitor enjoyed it mightily. It was the first glimpse +of sociality the host had had for many days. He too, with the world a +wide heath before him, enjoyed the meal—again in corroboration of the +magnates, as exemplifying the utter want of calculation on the part of +these people, sir. + +‘I ha never thowt yet, missus,’ said Stephen, ‘o’ askin thy name.’ + +The old lady announced herself as ‘Mrs. Pegler.’ + +‘A widder, I think?’ said Stephen. + +‘Oh, many long years!’ Mrs. Pegler’s husband (one of the best on record) +was already dead, by Mrs. Pegler’s calculation, when Stephen was born. + +‘’Twere a bad job, too, to lose so good a one,’ said Stephen. ‘Onny +children?’ + +Mrs. Pegler’s cup, rattling against her saucer as she held it, denoted +some nervousness on her part. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not now, not now.’ + +‘Dead, Stephen,’ Rachael softly hinted. + +‘I’m sooary I ha spok’n on ’t,’ said Stephen, ‘I ought t’ hadn in my mind +as I might touch a sore place. I—I blame myseln.’ + +While he excused himself, the old lady’s cup rattled more and more. ‘I +had a son,’ she said, curiously distressed, and not by any of the usual +appearances of sorrow; ‘and he did well, wonderfully well. But he is not +to be spoken of if you please. He is—’ Putting down her cup, she moved +her hands as if she would have added, by her action, ‘dead!’ Then she +said aloud, ‘I have lost him.’ + +Stephen had not yet got the better of his having given the old lady pain, +when his landlady came stumbling up the narrow stairs, and calling him to +the door, whispered in his ear. Mrs. Pegler was by no means deaf, for +she caught a word as it was uttered. + +‘Bounderby!’ she cried, in a suppressed voice, starting up from the +table. ‘Oh hide me! Don’t let me be seen for the world. Don’t let him +come up till I’ve got away. Pray, pray!’ She trembled, and was +excessively agitated; getting behind Rachael, when Rachael tried to +reassure her; and not seeming to know what she was about. + +‘But hearken, missus, hearken,’ said Stephen, astonished. ‘’Tisn’t Mr. +Bounderby; ’tis his wife. Yo’r not fearfo’ o’ her. Yo was hey-go-mad +about her, but an hour sin.’ + +‘But are you sure it’s the lady, and not the gentleman?’ she asked, still +trembling. + +‘Certain sure!’ + +‘Well then, pray don’t speak to me, nor yet take any notice of me,’ said +the old woman. ‘Let me be quite to myself in this corner.’ + +Stephen nodded; looking to Rachael for an explanation, which she was +quite unable to give him; took the candle, went downstairs, and in a few +moments returned, lighting Louisa into the room. She was followed by the +whelp. + +Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and bonnet in her hand, +when Stephen, himself profoundly astonished by this visit, put the candle +on the table. Then he too stood, with his doubled hand upon the table +near it, waiting to be addressed. + +For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the dwellings +of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life she was face to +face with anything like individuality in connection with them. She knew +of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results +in work a given number of them would produce in a given space of time. +She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or +beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of +toiling insects than of these toiling men and women. + +Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; +something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; +something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into +difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and +over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a +rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and +such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast +fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did +some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew +the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of +separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its +component drops. + +She stood for some moments looking round the room. From the few chairs, +the few books, the common prints, and the bed, she glanced to the two +women, and to Stephen. + +‘I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what passed just now. I +should like to be serviceable to you, if you will let me. Is this your +wife?’ + +Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently answered no, and dropped +again. + +‘I remember,’ said Louisa, reddening at her mistake; ‘I recollect, now, +to have heard your domestic misfortunes spoken of, though I was not +attending to the particulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask a +question that would give pain to any one here. If I should ask any other +question that may happen to have that result, give me credit, if you +please, for being in ignorance how to speak to you as I ought.’ + +As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed himself to +her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to Rachael. Her manner +was short and abrupt, yet faltering and timid. + +‘He has told you what has passed between himself and my husband? You +would be his first resource, I think.’ + +‘I have heard the end of it, young lady,’ said Rachael. + +‘Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, he would +probably be rejected by all? I thought he said as much?’ + +‘The chances are very small, young lady—next to nothing—for a man who +gets a bad name among them.’ + +‘What shall I understand that you mean by a bad name?’ + +‘The name of being troublesome.’ + +‘Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the prejudices of the +other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the two so deeply separated in this +town, that there is no place whatever for an honest workman between +them?’ + +Rachael shook her head in silence. + +‘He fell into suspicion,’ said Louisa, ‘with his fellow-weavers, +because—he had made a promise not to be one of them. I think it must +have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made +it?’ + +Rachael burst into tears. ‘I didn’t seek it of him, poor lad. I prayed +him to avoid trouble for his own good, little thinking he’d come to it +through me. But I know he’d die a hundred deaths, ere ever he’d break +his word. I know that of him well.’ + +Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful attitude, +with his hand at his chin. He now spoke in a voice rather less steady +than usual. + +‘No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an’ what love, an’ +respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi’ what cause. When I passed that +promess, I towd her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. ’Twere a solemn +promess. ’Tis gone fro’ me, for ever.’ + +Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that was new +in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and her features softened. +‘What will you do?’ she asked him. And her voice had softened too. + +‘Weel, ma’am,’ said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile; ‘when I +ha finished off, I mun quit this part, and try another. Fortnet or +misfortnet, a man can but try; there’s nowt to be done wi’out tryin’—cept +laying down and dying.’ + +‘How will you travel?’ + +‘Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.’ + +Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of a +bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the table. + +‘Rachael, will you tell him—for you know how, without offence—that this +is freely his, to help him on his way? Will you entreat him to take it?’ + +‘I canna do that, young lady,’ she answered, turning her head aside. +‘Bless you for thinking o’ the poor lad wi’ such tenderness. But ’tis +for him to know his heart, and what is right according to it.’ + +Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part overcome +with quick sympathy, when this man of so much self-command, who had been +so plain and steady through the late interview, lost his composure in a +moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. She stretched out +hers, as if she would have touched him; then checked herself, and +remained still. + +‘Not e’en Rachael,’ said Stephen, when he stood again with his face +uncovered, ‘could mak sitch a kind offerin, by onny words, kinder. T’ +show that I’m not a man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak two pound. +I’ll borrow ’t for t’ pay ’t back. ’Twill be the sweetest work as ever I +ha done, that puts it in my power t’ acknowledge once more my lastin +thankfulness for this present action.’ + +She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much +smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor handsome, nor +picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of +expressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in it that Lord +Chesterfield could not have taught his son in a century. + +Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and sucking his walking-stick +with sufficient unconcern, until the visit had attained this stage. +Seeing his sister ready to depart, he got up, rather hurriedly, and put +in a word. + +‘Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should like to speak to him a +moment. Something comes into my head. If you’ll step out on the stairs, +Blackpool, I’ll mention it. Never mind a light, man!’ Tom was +remarkably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard, to get one. ‘It +don’t want a light.’ + +Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and held the lock +in his hand. + +‘I say!’ he whispered. ‘I think I can do you a good turn. Don’t ask me +what it is, because it may not come to anything. But there’s no harm in +my trying.’ + +His breath fell like a flame of fire on Stephen’s ear, it was so hot. + +‘That was our light porter at the Bank,’ said Tom, ‘who brought you the +message to-night. I call him our light porter, because I belong to the +Bank too.’ + +Stephen thought, ‘What a hurry he is in!’ He spoke so confusedly. + +‘Well!’ said Tom. ‘Now look here! When are you off?’ + +‘T’ day’s Monday,’ replied Stephen, considering. ‘Why, sir, Friday or +Saturday, nigh ’bout.’ + +‘Friday or Saturday,’ said Tom. ‘Now look here! I am not sure that I +can do you the good turn I want to do you—that’s my sister, you know, in +your room—but I may be able to, and if I should not be able to, there’s +no harm done. So I tell you what. You’ll know our light porter again?’ + +‘Yes, sure,’ said Stephen. + +‘Very well,’ returned Tom. ‘When you leave work of a night, between this +and your going away, just hang about the Bank an hour or so, will you? +Don’t take on, as if you meant anything, if he should see you hanging +about there; because I shan’t put him up to speak to you, unless I find I +can do you the service I want to do you. In that case he’ll have a note +or a message for you, but not else. Now look here! You are sure you +understand.’ + +He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a button-hole of +Stephen’s coat, and was screwing that corner of the garment tight up +round and round, in an extraordinary manner. + +‘I understand, sir,’ said Stephen. + +‘Now look here!’ repeated Tom. ‘Be sure you don’t make any mistake then, +and don’t forget. I shall tell my sister as we go home, what I have in +view, and she’ll approve, I know. Now look here! You’re all right, are +you? You understand all about it? Very well then. Come along, Loo!’ + +He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did not return into the +room, or wait to be lighted down the narrow stairs. He was at the bottom +when she began to descend, and was in the street before she could take +his arm. + +Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother and sister were +gone, and until Stephen came back with the candle in his hand. She was +in a state of inexpressible admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an +unaccountable old woman, wept, ‘because she was such a pretty dear.’ Yet +Mrs. Pegler was so flurried lest the object of her admiration should +return by chance, or anybody else should come, that her cheerfulness was +ended for that night. It was late too, to people who rose early and +worked hard; therefore the party broke up; and Stephen and Rachael +escorted their mysterious acquaintance to the door of the Travellers’ +Coffee House, where they parted from her. + +They walked back together to the corner of the street where Rachael +lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer to it, silence crept upon them. +When they came to the dark corner where their unfrequent meetings always +ended, they stopped, still silent, as if both were afraid to speak. + +‘I shall strive t’ see thee agen, Rachael, afore I go, but if not—’ + +‘Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. ’Tis better that we make up our minds +to be open wi’ one another.’ + +‘Thou’rt awlus right. ’Tis bolder and better. I ha been thinkin then, +Rachael, that as ’tis but a day or two that remains, ’twere better for +thee, my dear, not t’ be seen wi’ me. ’T might bring thee into trouble, +fur no good.’ + +‘’Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. But thou know’st our old +agreement. ’Tis for that.’ + +‘Well, well,’ said he. ‘’Tis better, onnyways.’ + +‘Thou’lt write to me, and tell me all that happens, Stephen?’ + +‘Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi’ thee, Heaven bless thee, +Heaven thank thee and reward thee!’ + +‘May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wanderings, and send thee +peace and rest at last!’ + +‘I towd thee, my dear,’ said Stephen Blackpool—‘that night—that I would +never see or think o’ onnything that angered me, but thou, so much better +than me, should’st be beside it. Thou’rt beside it now. Thou mak’st me +see it wi’ a better eye. Bless thee. Good night. Good-bye!’ + +It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet it was a sacred +remembrance to these two common people. Utilitarian economists, +skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used-up +infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will +have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the +utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much +in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is +utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand +face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you. + +Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered by a word from any +one, and shunned in all his comings and goings as before. At the end of +the second day, he saw land; at the end of the third, his loom stood +empty. + +He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the Bank, on each of the +two first evenings; and nothing had happened there, good or bad. That he +might not be remiss in his part of the engagement, he resolved to wait +full two hours, on this third and last night. + +There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Bounderby’s house, sitting at +the first-floor window as he had seen her before; and there was the light +porter, sometimes talking with her there, and sometimes looking over the +blind below which had BANK upon it, and sometimes coming to the door and +standing on the steps for a breath of air. When he first came out, +Stephen thought he might be looking for him, and passed near; but the +light porter only cast his winking eyes upon him slightly, and said +nothing. + +Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after a long day’s +labour. Stephen sat upon the step of a door, leaned against a wall under +an archway, strolled up and down, listened for the church clock, stopped +and watched children playing in the street. Some purpose or other is so +natural to every one, that a mere loiterer always looks and feels +remarkable. When the first hour was out, Stephen even began to have an +uncomfortable sensation upon him of being for the time a disreputable +character. + +Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines of light all down +the long perspective of the street, until they were blended and lost in +the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed the first-floor window, drew down the +blind, and went up-stairs. Presently, a light went up-stairs after her, +passing first the fanlight of the door, and afterwards the two staircase +windows, on its way up. By and by, one corner of the second-floor blind +was disturbed, as if Mrs. Sparsit’s eye were there; also the other +corner, as if the light porter’s eye were on that side. Still, no +communication was made to Stephen. Much relieved when the two hours were +at last accomplished, he went away at a quick pace, as a recompense for +so much loitering. + +He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie down on his temporary +bed upon the floor; for his bundle was made up for to-morrow, and all was +arranged for his departure. He meant to be clear of the town very early; +before the Hands were in the streets. + +It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look round his room, +mournfully wondering whether he should ever see it again, he went out. +The town was as entirely deserted as if the inhabitants had abandoned it, +rather than hold communication with him. Everything looked wan at that +hour. Even the coming sun made but a pale waste in the sky, like a sad +sea. + +By the place where Rachael lived, though it was not in his way; by the +red brick streets; by the great silent factories, not trembling yet; by +the railway, where the danger-lights were waning in the strengthening +day; by the railway’s crazy neighbourhood, half pulled down and half +built up; by scattered red brick villas, where the besmoked evergreens +were sprinkled with a dirty powder, like untidy snuff-takers; by +coal-dust paths and many varieties of ugliness; Stephen got to the top of +the hill, and looked back. + +Day was shining radiantly upon the town then, and the bells were going +for the morning work. Domestic fires were not yet lighted, and the high +chimneys had the sky to themselves. Puffing out their poisonous volumes, +they would not be long in hiding it; but, for half an hour, some of the +many windows were golden, which showed the Coketown people a sun +eternally in eclipse, through a medium of smoked glass. + +So strange to turn from the chimneys to the birds. So strange, to have +the road-dust on his feet instead of the coal-grit. So strange to have +lived to his time of life, and yet to be beginning like a boy this summer +morning! With these musings in his mind, and his bundle under his arm, +Stephen took his attentive face along the high road. And the trees +arched over him, whispering that he left a true and loving heart behind. + + + + +CHAPTER VII +GUNPOWDER + + +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE, ‘going in’ for his adopted party, soon began to +score. With the aid of a little more coaching for the political sages, a +little more genteel listlessness for the general society, and a tolerable +management of the assumed honesty in dishonesty, most effective and most +patronized of the polite deadly sins, he speedily came to be considered +of much promise. The not being troubled with earnestness was a grand +point in his favour, enabling him to take to the hard Fact fellows with +as good a grace as if he had been born one of the tribe, and to throw all +other tribes overboard, as conscious hypocrites. + +‘Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. Bounderby, and who do not believe +themselves. The only difference between us and the professors of virtue +or benevolence, or philanthropy—never mind the name—is, that we know it +is all meaningless, and say so; while they know it equally and will never +say so.’ + +Why should she be shocked or warned by this reiteration? It was not so +unlike her father’s principles, and her early training, that it need +startle her. Where was the great difference between the two schools, +when each chained her down to material realities, and inspired her with +no faith in anything else? What was there in her soul for James +Harthouse to destroy, which Thomas Gradgrind had nurtured there in its +state of innocence! + +It was even the worse for her at this pass, that in her mind—implanted +there before her eminently practical father began to form it—a struggling +disposition to believe in a wider and nobler humanity than she had ever +heard of, constantly strove with doubts and resentments. With doubts, +because the aspiration had been so laid waste in her youth. With +resentments, because of the wrong that had been done her, if it were +indeed a whisper of the truth. Upon a nature long accustomed to +self-suppression, thus torn and divided, the Harthouse philosophy came as +a relief and justification. Everything being hollow and worthless, she +had missed nothing and sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had +said to her father, when he proposed her husband. What did it matter, +she said still. With a scornful self-reliance, she asked herself, What +did anything matter—and went on. + +Towards what? Step by step, onward and downward, towards some end, yet +so gradually, that she believed herself to remain motionless. As to Mr. +Harthouse, whither _he_ tended, he neither considered nor cared. He had +no particular design or plan before him: no energetic wickedness ruffled +his lassitude. He was as much amused and interested, at present, as it +became so fine a gentleman to be; perhaps even more than it would have +been consistent with his reputation to confess. Soon after his arrival +he languidly wrote to his brother, the honourable and jocular member, +that the Bounderbys were ‘great fun;’ and further, that the female +Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he had expected, was young, and +remarkably pretty. After that, he wrote no more about them, and devoted +his leisure chiefly to their house. He was very often in their house, in +his flittings and visitings about the Coketown district; and was much +encouraged by Mr. Bounderby. It was quite in Mr. Bounderby’s gusty way +to boast to all his world that _he_ didn’t care about your highly +connected people, but that if his wife Tom Gradgrind’s daughter did, she +was welcome to their company. + +Mr. James Harthouse began to think it would be a new sensation, if the +face which changed so beautifully for the whelp, would change for him. + +He was quick enough to observe; he had a good memory, and did not forget +a word of the brother’s revelations. He interwove them with everything +he saw of the sister, and he began to understand her. To be sure, the +better and profounder part of her character was not within his scope of +perception; for in natures, as in seas, depth answers unto depth; but he +soon began to read the rest with a student’s eye. + +Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a house and grounds, about fifteen +miles from the town, and accessible within a mile or two, by a railway +striding on many arches over a wild country, undermined by deserted +coal-shafts, and spotted at night by fires and black shapes of stationary +engines at pits’ mouths. This country, gradually softening towards the +neighbourhood of Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, there mellowed into a rustic +landscape, golden with heath, and snowy with hawthorn in the spring of +the year, and tremulous with leaves and their shadows all the summer +time. The bank had foreclosed a mortgage effected on the property thus +pleasantly situated, by one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his +determination to make a shorter cut than usual to an enormous fortune, +overspeculated himself by about two hundred thousand pounds. These +accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated families of +Coketown, but the bankrupts had no connexion whatever with the +improvident classes. + +It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satisfaction to instal himself in this +snug little estate, and with demonstrative humility to grow cabbages in +the flower-garden. He delighted to live, barrack-fashion, among the +elegant furniture, and he bullied the very pictures with his origin. +‘Why, sir,’ he would say to a visitor, ‘I am told that Nickits,’ the late +owner, ‘gave seven hundred pound for that Seabeach. Now, to be plain +with you, if I ever, in the whole course of my life, take seven looks at +it, at a hundred pound a look, it will be as much as I shall do. No, by +George! I don’t forget that I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. For +years upon years, the only pictures in my possession, or that I could +have got into my possession, by any means, unless I stole ’em, were the +engravings of a man shaving himself in a boot, on the blacking bottles +that I was overjoyed to use in cleaning boots with, and that I sold when +they were empty for a farthing a-piece, and glad to get it!’ + +Then he would address Mr. Harthouse in the same style. + +‘Harthouse, you have a couple of horses down here. Bring half a dozen +more if you like, and we’ll find room for ’em. There’s stabling in this +place for a dozen horses; and unless Nickits is belied, he kept the full +number. A round dozen of ’em, sir. When that man was a boy, he went to +Westminster School. Went to Westminster School as a King’s Scholar, when +I was principally living on garbage, and sleeping in market baskets. +Why, if I wanted to keep a dozen horses—which I don’t, for one’s enough +for me—I couldn’t bear to see ’em in their stalls here, and think what my +own lodging used to be. I couldn’t look at ’em, sir, and not order ’em +out. Yet so things come round. You see this place; you know what sort +of a place it is; you are aware that there’s not a completer place of its +size in this kingdom or elsewhere—I don’t care where—and here, got into +the middle of it, like a maggot into a nut, is Josiah Bounderby. While +Nickits (as a man came into my office, and told me yesterday), Nickits, +who used to act in Latin, in the Westminster School plays, with the +chief-justices and nobility of this country applauding him till they were +black in the face, is drivelling at this minute—drivelling, sir!—in a +fifth floor, up a narrow dark back street in Antwerp.’ + +It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in the long sultry +summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began to prove the face which had set him +wondering when he first saw it, and to try if it would change for him. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate accident that I find you +alone here. I have for some time had a particular wish to speak to you.’ + +It was not by any wonderful accident that he found her, the time of day +being that at which she was always alone, and the place being her +favourite resort. It was an opening in a dark wood, where some felled +trees lay, and where she would sit watching the fallen leaves of last +year, as she had watched the falling ashes at home. + +He sat down beside her, with a glance at her face. + +‘Your brother. My young friend Tom—’ + +Her colour brightened, and she turned to him with a look of interest. ‘I +never in my life,’ he thought, ‘saw anything so remarkable and so +captivating as the lighting of those features!’ His face betrayed his +thoughts—perhaps without betraying him, for it might have been according +to its instructions so to do. + +‘Pardon me. The expression of your sisterly interest is so beautiful—Tom +should be so proud of it—I know this is inexcusable, but I am so +compelled to admire.’ + +‘Being so impulsive,’ she said composedly. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby, no: you know I make no pretence with you. You know I am +a sordid piece of human nature, ready to sell myself at any time for any +reasonable sum, and altogether incapable of any Arcadian proceeding +whatever.’ + +‘I am waiting,’ she returned, ‘for your further reference to my brother.’ + +‘You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. I am as worthless a dog as you +will find, except that I am not false—not false. But you surprised and +started me from my subject, which was your brother. I have an interest +in him.’ + +‘Have you an interest in anything, Mr. Harthouse?’ she asked, half +incredulously and half gratefully. + +‘If you had asked me when I first came here, I should have said no. I +must say now—even at the hazard of appearing to make a pretence, and of +justly awakening your incredulity—yes.’ + +She made a slight movement, as if she were trying to speak, but could not +find voice; at length she said, ‘Mr. Harthouse, I give you credit for +being interested in my brother.’ + +‘Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You know how little I do claim, but +I will go that length. You have done so much for him, you are so fond of +him; your whole life, Mrs. Bounderby, expresses such charming +self-forgetfulness on his account—pardon me again—I am running wide of +the subject. I am interested in him for his own sake.’ + +She had made the slightest action possible, as if she would have risen in +a hurry and gone away. He had turned the course of what he said at that +instant, and she remained. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he resumed, in a lighter manner, and yet with a show of +effort in assuming it, which was even more expressive than the manner he +dismissed; ‘it is no irrevocable offence in a young fellow of your +brother’s years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate, and expensive—a little +dissipated, in the common phrase. Is he?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Allow me to be frank. Do you think he games at all?’ + +‘I think he makes bets.’ Mr. Harthouse waiting, as if that were not her +whole answer, she added, ‘I know he does.’ + +‘Of course he loses?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Everybody does lose who bets. May I hint at the probability of your +sometimes supplying him with money for these purposes?’ + +She sat, looking down; but, at this question, raised her eyes searchingly +and a little resentfully. + +‘Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my dear Mrs. Bounderby. I think Tom +may be gradually falling into trouble, and I wish to stretch out a +helping hand to him from the depths of my wicked experience.—Shall I say +again, for his sake? Is that necessary?’ + +She seemed to try to answer, but nothing came of it. + +‘Candidly to confess everything that has occurred to me,’ said James +Harthouse, again gliding with the same appearance of effort into his more +airy manner; ‘I will confide to you my doubt whether he has had many +advantages. Whether—forgive my plainness—whether any great amount of +confidence is likely to have been established between himself and his +most worthy father.’ + +‘I do not,’ said Louisa, flushing with her own great remembrance in that +wise, ‘think it likely.’ + +‘Or, between himself, and—I may trust to your perfect understanding of my +meaning, I am sure—and his highly esteemed brother-in-law.’ + +She flushed deeper and deeper, and was burning red when she replied in a +fainter voice, ‘I do not think that likely, either.’ + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, after a short silence, ‘may there be a +better confidence between yourself and me? Tom has borrowed a +considerable sum of you?’ + +‘You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,’ she returned, after some +indecision: she had been more or less uncertain, and troubled throughout +the conversation, and yet had in the main preserved her self-contained +manner; ‘you will understand that if I tell you what you press to know, +it is not by way of complaint or regret. I would never complain of +anything, and what I have done I do not in the least regret.’ + +‘So spirited, too!’ thought James Harthouse. + +‘When I married, I found that my brother was even at that time heavily in +debt. Heavily for him, I mean. Heavily enough to oblige me to sell some +trinkets. They were no sacrifice. I sold them very willingly. I +attached no value to them. They were quite worthless to me.’ + +Either she saw in his face that he knew, or she only feared in her +conscience that he knew, that she spoke of some of her husband’s gifts. +She stopped, and reddened again. If he had not known it before, he would +have known it then, though he had been a much duller man than he was. + +‘Since then, I have given my brother, at various times, what money I +could spare: in short, what money I have had. Confiding in you at all, +on the faith of the interest you profess for him, I will not do so by +halves. Since you have been in the habit of visiting here, he has wanted +in one sum as much as a hundred pounds. I have not been able to give it +to him. I have felt uneasy for the consequences of his being so +involved, but I have kept these secrets until now, when I trust them to +your honour. I have held no confidence with any one, because—you +anticipated my reason just now.’ She abruptly broke off. + +He was a ready man, and he saw, and seized, an opportunity here of +presenting her own image to her, slightly disguised as her brother. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, of the world worldly, I feel +the utmost interest, I assure you, in what you tell me. I cannot +possibly be hard upon your brother. I understand and share the wise +consideration with which you regard his errors. With all possible +respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and for Mr. Bounderby, I think I perceive +that he has not been fortunate in his training. Bred at a disadvantage +towards the society in which he has his part to play, he rushes into +these extremes for himself, from opposite extremes that have long been +forced—with the very best intentions we have no doubt—upon him. Mr. +Bounderby’s fine bluff English independence, though a most charming +characteristic, does not—as we have agreed—invite confidence. If I might +venture to remark that it is the least in the world deficient in that +delicacy to which a youth mistaken, a character misconceived, and +abilities misdirected, would turn for relief and guidance, I should +express what it presents to my own view.’ + +As she sat looking straight before her, across the changing lights upon +the grass into the darkness of the wood beyond, he saw in her face her +application of his very distinctly uttered words. + +‘All allowance,’ he continued, ‘must be made. I have one great fault to +find with Tom, however, which I cannot forgive, and for which I take him +heavily to account.’ + +Louisa turned her eyes to his face, and asked him what fault was that? + +‘Perhaps,’ he returned, ‘I have said enough. Perhaps it would have been +better, on the whole, if no allusion to it had escaped me.’ + +‘You alarm me, Mr. Harthouse. Pray let me know it.’ + +‘To relieve you from needless apprehension—and as this confidence +regarding your brother, which I prize I am sure above all possible +things, has been established between us—I obey. I cannot forgive him for +not being more sensible in every word, look, and act of his life, of the +affection of his best friend; of the devotion of his best friend; of her +unselfishness; of her sacrifice. The return he makes her, within my +observation, is a very poor one. What she has done for him demands his +constant love and gratitude, not his ill-humour and caprice. Careless +fellow as I am, I am not so indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as to be +regardless of this vice in your brother, or inclined to consider it a +venial offence.’ + +The wood floated before her, for her eyes were suffused with tears. They +rose from a deep well, long concealed, and her heart was filled with +acute pain that found no relief in them. + +‘In a word, it is to correct your brother in this, Mrs. Bounderby, that I +must aspire. My better knowledge of his circumstances, and my direction +and advice in extricating them—rather valuable, I hope, as coming from a +scapegrace on a much larger scale—will give me some influence over him, +and all I gain I shall certainly use towards this end. I have said +enough, and more than enough. I seem to be protesting that I am a sort +of good fellow, when, upon my honour, I have not the least intention to +make any protestation to that effect, and openly announce that I am +nothing of the sort. Yonder, among the trees,’ he added, having lifted +up his eyes and looked about; for he had watched her closely until now; +‘is your brother himself; no doubt, just come down. As he seems to be +loitering in this direction, it may be as well, perhaps, to walk towards +him, and throw ourselves in his way. He has been very silent and doleful +of late. Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is touched—if there are such +things as consciences. Though, upon my honour, I hear of them much too +often to believe in them.’ + +He assisted her to rise, and she took his arm, and they advanced to meet +the whelp. He was idly beating the branches as he lounged along: or he +stooped viciously to rip the moss from the trees with his stick. He was +startled when they came upon him while he was engaged in this latter +pastime, and his colour changed. + +‘Halloa!’ he stammered; ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ + +‘Whose name, Tom,’ said Mr. Harthouse, putting his hand upon his shoulder +and turning him, so that they all three walked towards the house +together, ‘have you been carving on the trees?’ + +‘Whose name?’ returned Tom. ‘Oh! You mean what girl’s name?’ + +‘You have a suspicious appearance of inscribing some fair creature’s on +the bark, Tom.’ + + [Picture: Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the garden] + +‘Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless some fair creature with a +slashing fortune at her own disposal would take a fancy to me. Or she +might be as ugly as she was rich, without any fear of losing me. I’d +carve her name as often as she liked.’ + +‘I am afraid you are mercenary, Tom.’ + +‘Mercenary,’ repeated Tom. ‘Who is not mercenary? Ask my sister.’ + +‘Have you so proved it to be a failing of mine, Tom?’ said Louisa, +showing no other sense of his discontent and ill-nature. + +‘You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,’ returned her brother sulkily. +‘If it does, you can wear it.’ + +‘Tom is misanthropical to-day, as all bored people are now and then,’ +said Mr. Harthouse. ‘Don’t believe him, Mrs. Bounderby. He knows much +better. I shall disclose some of his opinions of you, privately +expressed to me, unless he relents a little.’ + +‘At all events, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, softening in his admiration of +his patron, but shaking his head sullenly too, ‘you can’t tell her that I +ever praised her for being mercenary. I may have praised her for being +the contrary, and I should do it again, if I had as good reason. +However, never mind this now; it’s not very interesting to you, and I am +sick of the subject.’ + +They walked on to the house, where Louisa quitted her visitor’s arm and +went in. He stood looking after her, as she ascended the steps, and +passed into the shadow of the door; then put his hand upon her brother’s +shoulder again, and invited him with a confidential nod to a walk in the +garden. + +‘Tom, my fine fellow, I want to have a word with you.’ + +They had stopped among a disorder of roses—it was part of Mr. Bounderby’s +humility to keep Nickits’s roses on a reduced scale—and Tom sat down on a +terrace-parapet, plucking buds and picking them to pieces; while his +powerful Familiar stood over him, with a foot upon the parapet, and his +figure easily resting on the arm supported by that knee. They were just +visible from her window. Perhaps she saw them. + +‘Tom, what’s the matter?’ + +‘Oh! Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom with a groan, ‘I am hard up, and bothered +out of my life.’ + +‘My good fellow, so am I.’ + +‘You!’ returned Tom. ‘You are the picture of independence. Mr. +Harthouse, I am in a horrible mess. You have no idea what a state I have +got myself into—what a state my sister might have got me out of, if she +would only have done it.’ + +He took to biting the rosebuds now, and tearing them away from his teeth +with a hand that trembled like an infirm old man’s. After one +exceedingly observant look at him, his companion relapsed into his +lightest air. + +‘Tom, you are inconsiderate: you expect too much of your sister. You +have had money of her, you dog, you know you have.’ + +‘Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else was I to get it? Here’s +old Bounderby always boasting that at my age he lived upon twopence a +month, or something of that sort. Here’s my father drawing what he calls +a line, and tying me down to it from a baby, neck and heels. Here’s my +mother who never has anything of her own, except her complaints. What +_is_ a fellow to do for money, and where _am_ I to look for it, if not to +my sister?’ + +He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by dozens. Mr. +Harthouse took him persuasively by the coat. + +‘But, my dear Tom, if your sister has not got it—’ + +‘Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don’t say she has got it. I may have +wanted more than she was likely to have got. But then she ought to get +it. She could get it. It’s of no use pretending to make a secret of +matters now, after what I have told you already; you know she didn’t +marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for his sake, but for my sake. +Then why doesn’t she get what I want, out of him, for my sake? She is +not obliged to say what she is going to do with it; she is sharp enough; +she could manage to coax it out of him, if she chose. Then why doesn’t +she choose, when I tell her of what consequence it is? But no. There +she sits in his company like a stone, instead of making herself agreeable +and getting it easily. I don’t know what you may call this, but I call +it unnatural conduct.’ + +There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on +the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong +inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind junior, as the injured men of +Coketown threatened to pitch their property into the Atlantic. But he +preserved his easy attitude; and nothing more solid went over the stone +balustrades than the accumulated rosebuds now floating about, a little +surface-island. + +‘My dear Tom,’ said Harthouse, ‘let me try to be your banker.’ + +‘For God’s sake,’ replied Tom, suddenly, ‘don’t talk about bankers!’ And +very white he looked, in contrast with the roses. Very white. + +Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well-bred man, accustomed to the best +society, was not to be surprised—he could as soon have been affected—but +he raised his eyelids a little more, as if they were lifted by a feeble +touch of wonder. Albeit it was as much against the precepts of his +school to wonder, as it was against the doctrines of the Gradgrind +College. + +‘What is the present need, Tom? Three figures? Out with them. Say what +they are.’ + +‘Mr. Harthouse,’ returned Tom, now actually crying; and his tears were +better than his injuries, however pitiful a figure he made: ‘it’s too +late; the money is of no use to me at present. I should have had it +before to be of use to me. But I am very much obliged to you; you’re a +true friend.’ + +A true friend! ‘Whelp, whelp!’ thought Mr. Harthouse, lazily; ‘what an +Ass you are!’ + +‘And I take your offer as a great kindness,’ said Tom, grasping his hand. +‘As a great kindness, Mr. Harthouse.’ + +‘Well,’ returned the other, ‘it may be of more use by and by. And, my +good fellow, if you will open your bedevilments to me when they come +thick upon you, I may show you better ways out of them than you can find +for yourself.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Tom, shaking his head dismally, and chewing rosebuds. +‘I wish I had known you sooner, Mr. Harthouse.’ + +‘Now, you see, Tom,’ said Mr. Harthouse in conclusion, himself tossing +over a rose or two, as a contribution to the island, which was always +drifting to the wall as if it wanted to become a part of the mainland: +‘every man is selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly like the +rest of my fellow-creatures. I am desperately intent;’ the languor of +his desperation being quite tropical; ‘on your softening towards your +sister—which you ought to do; and on your being a more loving and +agreeable sort of brother—which you ought to be.’ + +‘I will be, Mr. Harthouse.’ + +‘No time like the present, Tom. Begin at once.’ + +‘Certainly I will. And my sister Loo shall say so.’ + +‘Having made which bargain, Tom,’ said Harthouse, clapping him on the +shoulder again, with an air which left him at liberty to infer—as he did, +poor fool—that this condition was imposed upon him in mere careless good +nature to lessen his sense of obligation, ‘we will tear ourselves asunder +until dinner-time.’ + +When Tom appeared before dinner, though his mind seemed heavy enough, his +body was on the alert; and he appeared before Mr. Bounderby came in. ‘I +didn’t mean to be cross, Loo,’ he said, giving her his hand, and kissing +her. ‘I know you are fond of me, and you know I am fond of you.’ + +After this, there was a smile upon Louisa’s face that day, for some one +else. Alas, for some one else! + +‘So much the less is the whelp the only creature that she cares for,’ +thought James Harthouse, reversing the reflection of his first day’s +knowledge of her pretty face. ‘So much the less, so much the less.’ + + + + +CHAPTER VIII +EXPLOSION + + +THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse +rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, +smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome an influence on his +young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his +eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke vanishing into the air, so +rich and soft with summer odours, he reckoned up his advantages as an +idle winner might count his gains. He was not at all bored for the time, +and could give his mind to it. + +He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband was +excluded. He had established a confidence with her, that absolutely +turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and the absence, now +and at all times, of any congeniality between them. He had artfully, but +plainly, assured her that he knew her heart in its last most delicate +recesses; he had come so near to her through its tenderest sentiment; he +had associated himself with that feeling; and the barrier behind which +she lived, had melted away. All very odd, and very satisfactory! + +And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in him. +Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in which he +lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad, +than indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs setting +with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships. + +When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape +by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, when he is +trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode; when he is +aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used +up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or +to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil. + +So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and +reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he happened to +be travelling. The end to which it led was before him, pretty plainly; +but he troubled himself with no calculations about it. What will be, +will be. + +As he had rather a long ride to take that day—for there was a public +occasion ‘to do’ at some distance, which afforded a tolerable opportunity +of going in for the Gradgrind men—he dressed early and went down to +breakfast. He was anxious to see if she had relapsed since the previous +evening. No. He resumed where he had left off. There was a look of +interest for him again. + +He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own satisfaction, as +was to be expected under the fatiguing circumstances; and came riding +back at six o’clock. There was a sweep of some half-mile between the +lodge and the house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the +smooth gravel, once Nickits’s, when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the +shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy across the road. + +‘Harthouse!’ cried Mr. Bounderby. ‘Have you heard?’ + +‘Heard what?’ said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly favouring +Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes. + +‘Then you _haven’t_ heard!’ + +‘I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have heard nothing else.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the path +before the horse’s head, to explode his bombshell with more effect. + +‘The Bank’s robbed!’ + +‘You don’t mean it!’ + +‘Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary manner. Robbed with +a false key.’ + +‘Of much?’ + +Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really seemed +mortified by being obliged to reply, ‘Why, no; not of very much. But it +might have been.’ + +‘Of how much?’ + +‘Oh! as a sum—if you stick to a sum—of not more than a hundred and fifty +pound,’ said Bounderby, with impatience. ‘But it’s not the sum; it’s the +fact. It’s the fact of the Bank being robbed, that’s the important +circumstance. I am surprised you don’t see it.’ + +‘My dear Bounderby,’ said James, dismounting, and giving his bridle to +his servant, ‘I _do_ see it; and am as overcome as you can possibly +desire me to be, by the spectacle afforded to my mental view. +Nevertheless, I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you—which I do +with all my soul, I assure you—on your not having sustained a greater +loss.’ + +‘Thank’ee,’ replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious manner. ‘But I +tell you what. It might have been twenty thousand pound.’ + +‘I suppose it might.’ + +‘Suppose it might! By the Lord, you _may_ suppose so. By George!’ said +Mr. Bounderby, with sundry menacing nods and shakes of his head. ‘It +might have been twice twenty. There’s no knowing what it would have +been, or wouldn’t have been, as it was, but for the fellows’ being +disturbed.’ + +Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer. + +‘Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows pretty well what it might have +been, if you don’t,’ blustered Bounderby. ‘Dropped, sir, as if she was +shot when I told her! Never knew her do such a thing before. Does her +credit, under the circumstances, in my opinion!’ + +She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse begged her to take his +arm; and as they moved on very slowly, asked her how the robbery had been +committed. + +‘Why, I am going to tell you,’ said Bounderby, irritably giving his arm +to Mrs. Sparsit. ‘If you hadn’t been so mighty particular about the sum, +I should have begun to tell you before. You know this lady (for she _is_ +a lady), Mrs. Sparsit?’ + +‘I have already had the honour—’ + +‘Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw him too on the same +occasion?’ Mr. Harthouse inclined his head in assent, and Bitzer +knuckled his forehead. + +‘Very well. They live at the Bank. You know they live at the Bank, +perhaps? Very well. Yesterday afternoon, at the close of business +hours, everything was put away as usual. In the iron room that this +young fellow sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. In the +little safe in young Tom’s closet, the safe used for petty purposes, +there was a hundred and fifty odd pound.’ + +‘A hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,’ said Bitzer. + +‘Come!’ retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel round upon him, ‘let’s have +none of _your_ interruptions. It’s enough to be robbed while you’re +snoring because you’re too comfortable, without being put right with +_your_ four seven ones. I didn’t snore, myself, when I was your age, let +me tell you. I hadn’t victuals enough to snore. And I didn’t four seven +one. Not if I knew it.’ + +Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and seemed at +once particularly impressed and depressed by the instance last given of +Mr. Bounderby’s moral abstinence. + +‘A hundred and fifty odd pound,’ resumed Mr. Bounderby. ‘That sum of +money, young Tom locked in his safe, not a very strong safe, but that’s +no matter now. Everything was left, all right. Some time in the night, +while this young fellow snored—Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, you say you have +heard him snore?’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I cannot say that I have heard him +precisely snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But on +winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard +him, what I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard +him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar to what may be +sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty +sense of giving strict evidence, ‘that I would convey any imputation on +his moral character. Far from it. I have always considered Bitzer a +young man of the most upright principle; and to that I beg to bear my +testimony.’ + +‘Well!’ said the exasperated Bounderby, ‘while he was snoring, _or_ +choking, _or_ Dutch-clocking, _or_ something _or_ other—being asleep—some +fellows, somehow, whether previously concealed in the house or not +remains to be seen, got to young Tom’s safe, forced it, and abstracted +the contents. Being then disturbed, they made off; letting themselves +out at the main door, and double-locking it again (it was double-locked, +and the key under Mrs. Sparsit’s pillow) with a false key, which was +picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve o’clock to-day. No +alarm takes place, till this chap, Bitzer, turns out this morning, and +begins to open and prepare the offices for business. Then, looking at +Tom’s safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced, and the +money gone.’ + +‘Where is Tom, by the by?’ asked Harthouse, glancing round. + +‘He has been helping the police,’ said Bounderby, ‘and stays behind at +the Bank. I wish these fellows had tried to rob me when I was at his +time of life. They would have been out of pocket if they had invested +eighteenpence in the job; I can tell ’em that.’ + +‘Is anybody suspected?’ + +‘Suspected? I should think there was somebody suspected. Egod!’ said +Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs. Sparsit’s arm to wipe his heated head. +‘Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is not to be plundered and nobody +suspected. No, thank you!’ + +Might Mr. Harthouse inquire Who was suspected? + +‘Well,’ said Bounderby, stopping and facing about to confront them all, +‘I’ll tell you. It’s not to be mentioned everywhere; it’s not to be +mentioned anywhere: in order that the scoundrels concerned (there’s a +gang of ’em) may be thrown off their guard. So take this in confidence. +Now wait a bit.’ Mr. Bounderby wiped his head again. ‘What should you +say to;’ here he violently exploded: ‘to a Hand being in it?’ + +‘I hope,’ said Harthouse, lazily, ‘not our friend Blackpot?’ + +‘Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,’ returned Bounderby, ‘and that’s the man.’ + +Louisa faintly uttered some word of incredulity and surprise. + +‘O yes! I know!’ said Bounderby, immediately catching at the sound. ‘I +know! I am used to that. I know all about it. They are the finest +people in the world, these fellows are. They have got the gift of the +gab, they have. They only want to have their rights explained to them, +they do. But I tell you what. Show me a dissatisfied Hand, and I’ll +show you a man that’s fit for anything bad, I don’t care what it is.’ + +Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which some pains had been +taken to disseminate—and which some people really believed. + +‘But I am acquainted with these chaps,’ said Bounderby. ‘I can read ’em +off, like books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I appeal to you. What warning did +I give that fellow, the first time he set foot in the house, when the +express object of his visit was to know how he could knock Religion over, +and floor the Established Church? Mrs. Sparsit, in point of high +connexions, you are on a level with the aristocracy,—did I say, or did I +not say, to that fellow, “you can’t hide the truth from me: you are not +the kind of fellow I like; you’ll come to no good”?’ + +‘Assuredly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you did, in a highly impressive +manner, give him such an admonition.’ + +‘When he shocked you, ma’am,’ said Bounderby; ‘when he shocked your +feelings?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek shake of her head, ‘he +certainly did so. Though I do not mean to say but that my feelings may +be weaker on such points—more foolish if the term is preferred—than they +might have been, if I had always occupied my present position.’ + +Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. Harthouse, as much as +to say, ‘I am the proprietor of this female, and she’s worth your +attention, I think.’ Then, resumed his discourse. + +‘You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said to him when you saw +him. I didn’t mince the matter with him. I am never mealy with ’em. I +KNOW ’em. Very well, sir. Three days after that, he bolted. Went off, +nobody knows where: as my mother did in my infancy—only with this +difference, that he is a worse subject than my mother, if possible. What +did he do before he went? What do you say;’ Mr. Bounderby, with his hat +in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every little division of his +sentences, as if it were a tambourine; ‘to his being seen—night after +night—watching the Bank?—to his lurking about there—after dark?—To its +striking Mrs. Sparsit—that he could be lurking for no good—To her calling +Bitzer’s attention to him, and their both taking notice of him—And to its +appearing on inquiry to-day—that he was also noticed by the neighbours?’ +Having come to the climax, Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put +his tambourine on his head. + +‘Suspicious,’ said James Harthouse, ‘certainly.’ + +‘I think so, sir,’ said Bounderby, with a defiant nod. ‘I think so. But +there are more of ’em in it. There’s an old woman. One never hears of +these things till the mischief’s done; all sorts of defects are found out +in the stable door after the horse is stolen; there’s an old woman turns +up now. An old woman who seems to have been flying into town on a +broomstick, every now and then. _She_ watches the place a whole day +before this fellow begins, and on the night when you saw him, she steals +away with him and holds a council with him—I suppose, to make her report +on going off duty, and be damned to her.’ + +There was such a person in the room that night, and she shrunk from +observation, thought Louisa. + +‘This is not all of ’em, even as we already know ’em,’ said Bounderby, +with many nods of hidden meaning. ‘But I have said enough for the +present. You’ll have the goodness to keep it quiet, and mention it to no +one. It may take time, but we shall have ’em. It’s policy to give ’em +line enough, and there’s no objection to that.’ + +‘Of course, they will be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, as +notice-boards observe,’ replied James Harthouse, ‘and serve them right. +Fellows who go in for Banks must take the consequences. If there were no +consequences, we should all go in for Banks.’ He had gently taken +Louisa’s parasol from her hand, and had put it up for her; and she walked +under its shade, though the sun did not shine there. + +‘For the present, Loo Bounderby,’ said her husband, ‘here’s Mrs. Sparsit +to look after. Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves have been acted upon by this +business, and she’ll stay here a day or two. So make her comfortable.’ + +‘Thank you very much, sir,’ that discreet lady observed, ‘but pray do not +let My comfort be a consideration. Anything will do for Me.’ + +It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in her association +with that domestic establishment, it was that she was so excessively +regardless of herself and regardful of others, as to be a nuisance. On +being shown her chamber, she was so dreadfully sensible of its comforts +as to suggest the inference that she would have preferred to pass the +night on the mangle in the laundry. True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses +were accustomed to splendour, ‘but it is my duty to remember,’ Mrs. +Sparsit was fond of observing with a lofty grace: particularly when any +of the domestics were present, ‘that what I was, I am no longer. +Indeed,’ said she, ‘if I could altogether cancel the remembrance that Mr. +Sparsit was a Powler, or that I myself am related to the Scadgers family; +or if I could even revoke the fact, and make myself a person of common +descent and ordinary connexions; I would gladly do so. I should think +it, under existing circumstances, right to do so.’ The same Hermitical +state of mind led to her renunciation of made dishes and wines at dinner, +until fairly commanded by Mr. Bounderby to take them; when she said, +‘Indeed you are very good, sir;’ and departed from a resolution of which +she had made rather formal and public announcement, to ‘wait for the +simple mutton.’ She was likewise deeply apologetic for wanting the salt; +and, feeling amiably bound to bear out Mr. Bounderby to the fullest +extent in the testimony he had borne to her nerves, occasionally sat back +in her chair and silently wept; at which periods a tear of large +dimensions, like a crystal ear-ring, might be observed (or rather, must +be, for it insisted on public notice) sliding down her Roman nose. + +But Mrs. Sparsit’s greatest point, first and last, was her determination +to pity Mr. Bounderby. There were occasions when in looking at him she +was involuntarily moved to shake her head, as who would say, ‘Alas, poor +Yorick!’ After allowing herself to be betrayed into these evidences of +emotion, she would force a lambent brightness, and would be fitfully +cheerful, and would say, ‘You have still good spirits, sir, I am thankful +to find;’ and would appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that Mr. +Bounderby bore up as he did. One idiosyncrasy for which she often +apologized, she found it excessively difficult to conquer. She had a +curious propensity to call Mrs. Bounderby ‘Miss Gradgrind,’ and yielded +to it some three or four score times in the course of the evening. Her +repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. Sparsit with modest confusion; +but indeed, she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss Gradgrind: +whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady whom she had had the +happiness of knowing from a child could be really and truly Mrs. +Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a further singularity of +this remarkable case, that the more she thought about it, the more +impossible it appeared; ‘the differences,’ she observed, ‘being such.’ + +In the drawing-room after dinner, Mr. Bounderby tried the case of the +robbery, examined the witnesses, made notes of the evidence, found the +suspected persons guilty, and sentenced them to the extreme punishment of +the law. That done, Bitzer was dismissed to town with instructions to +recommend Tom to come home by the mail-train. + +When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit murmured, ‘Don’t be low, sir. +Pray let me see you cheerful, sir, as I used to do.’ Mr. Bounderby, upon +whom these consolations had begun to produce the effect of making him, in +a bull-headed blundering way, sentimental, sighed like some large +sea-animal. ‘I cannot bear to see you so, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Try +a hand at backgammon, sir, as you used to do when I had the honour of +living under your roof.’ ‘I haven’t played backgammon, ma’am,’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘since that time.’ ‘No, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, soothingly, +‘I am aware that you have not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind takes no +interest in the game. But I shall be happy, sir, if you will +condescend.’ + +They played near a window, opening on the garden. It was a fine night: +not moonlight, but sultry and fragrant. Louisa and Mr. Harthouse +strolled out into the garden, where their voices could be heard in the +stillness, though not what they said. Mrs. Sparsit, from her place at +the backgammon board, was constantly straining her eyes to pierce the +shadows without. ‘What’s the matter, ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby; ‘you +don’t see a Fire, do you?’ ‘Oh dear no, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I +was thinking of the dew.’ ‘What have you got to do with the dew, ma’am?’ +said Mr. Bounderby. ‘It’s not myself, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I am +fearful of Miss Gradgrind’s taking cold.’ ‘She never takes cold,’ said +Mr. Bounderby. ‘Really, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. And was affected with +a cough in her throat. + +When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby took a glass of +water. ‘Oh, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Not your sherry warm, with +lemon-peel and nutmeg?’ ‘Why, I have got out of the habit of taking it +now, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘The more’s the pity, sir,’ returned +Mrs. Sparsit; ‘you are losing all your good old habits. Cheer up, sir! +If Miss Gradgrind will permit me, I will offer to make it for you, as I +have often done.’ + +Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do anything she +pleased, that considerate lady made the beverage, and handed it to Mr. +Bounderby. ‘It will do you good, sir. It will warm your heart. It is +the sort of thing you want, and ought to take, sir.’ And when Mr. +Bounderby said, ‘Your health, ma’am!’ she answered with great feeling, +‘Thank you, sir. The same to you, and happiness also.’ Finally, she +wished him good night, with great pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, +with a maudlin persuasion that he had been crossed in something tender, +though he could not, for his life, have mentioned what it was. + +Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she watched and waited for +her brother’s coming home. That could hardly be, she knew, until an hour +past midnight; but in the country silence, which did anything but calm +the trouble of her thoughts, time lagged wearily. At last, when the +darkness and stillness had seemed for hours to thicken one another, she +heard the bell at the gate. She felt as though she would have been glad +that it rang on until daylight; but it ceased, and the circles of its +last sound spread out fainter and wider in the air, and all was dead +again. + +She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. Then she arose, +put on a loose robe, and went out of her room in the dark, and up the +staircase to her brother’s room. His door being shut, she softly opened +it and spoke to him, approaching his bed with a noiseless step. + +She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his neck, and drew his +face to hers. She knew that he only feigned to be asleep, but she said +nothing to him. + +He started by and by as if he were just then awakened, and asked who that +was, and what was the matter? + +‘Tom, have you anything to tell me? If ever you loved me in your life, +and have anything concealed from every one besides, tell it to me.’ + +‘I don’t know what you mean, Loo. You have been dreaming.’ + +‘My dear brother:’ she laid her head down on his pillow, and her hair +flowed over him as if she would hide him from every one but herself: ‘is +there nothing that you have to tell me? Is there nothing you can tell me +if you will? You can tell me nothing that will change me. O Tom, tell +me the truth!’ + +‘I don’t know what you mean, Loo!’ + +‘As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy night, so you must lie +somewhere one night, when even I, if I am living then, shall have left +you. As I am here beside you, barefoot, unclothed, undistinguishable in +darkness, so must I lie through all the night of my decay, until I am +dust. In the name of that time, Tom, tell me the truth now!’ + +‘What is it you want to know?’ + +‘You may be certain;’ in the energy of her love she took him to her bosom +as if he were a child; ‘that I will not reproach you. You may be certain +that I will be compassionate and true to you. You may be certain that I +will save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have you nothing to tell me? +Whisper very softly. Say only “yes,” and I shall understand you!’ + +She turned her ear to his lips, but he remained doggedly silent. + +‘Not a word, Tom?’ + +‘How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when I don’t know what you mean? +Loo, you are a brave, kind girl, worthy I begin to think of a better +brother than I am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to bed, go to +bed.’ + +‘You are tired,’ she whispered presently, more in her usual way. + +‘Yes, I am quite tired out.’ + +‘You have been so hurried and disturbed to-day. Have any fresh +discoveries been made?’ + +‘Only those you have heard of, from—him.’ + +‘Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit to those people, and +that we saw those three together?’ + +‘No. Didn’t you yourself particularly ask me to keep it quiet when you +asked me to go there with you?’ + +‘Yes. But I did not know then what was going to happen.’ + +‘Nor I neither. How could I?’ + +He was very quick upon her with this retort. + +‘Ought I to say, after what has happened,’ said his sister, standing by +the bed—she had gradually withdrawn herself and risen, ‘that I made that +visit? Should I say so? Must I say so?’ + +‘Good Heavens, Loo,’ returned her brother, ‘you are not in the habit of +asking my advice. Say what you like. If you keep it to yourself, I +shall keep it to _my_self. If you disclose it, there’s an end of it.’ + +It was too dark for either to see the other’s face; but each seemed very +attentive, and to consider before speaking. + +‘Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is really implicated in +this crime?’ + +‘I don’t know. I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.’ + +‘He seemed to me an honest man.’ + +‘Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet not be so.’ There was +a pause, for he had hesitated and stopped. + +‘In short,’ resumed Tom, as if he had made up his mind, ‘if you come to +that, perhaps I was so far from being altogether in his favour, that I +took him outside the door to tell him quietly, that I thought he might +consider himself very well off to get such a windfall as he had got from +my sister, and that I hoped he would make good use of it. You remember +whether I took him out or not. I say nothing against the man; he may be +a very good fellow, for anything I know; I hope he is.’ + +‘Was he offended by what you said?’ + +‘No, he took it pretty well; he was civil enough. Where are you, Loo?’ +He sat up in bed and kissed her. ‘Good night, my dear, good night.’ + +‘You have nothing more to tell me?’ + +‘No. What should I have? You wouldn’t have me tell you a lie!’ + +‘I wouldn’t have you do that to-night, Tom, of all the nights in your +life; many and much happier as I hope they will be.’ + +‘Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am sure I wonder I don’t +say anything to get to sleep. Go to bed, go to bed.’ + +Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet over his head, and +lay as still as if that time had come by which she had adjured him. She +stood for some time at the bedside before she slowly moved away. She +stopped at the door, looked back when she had opened it, and asked him if +he had called her? But he lay still, and she softly closed the door and +returned to her room. + +Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone, crept out +of bed, fastened his door, and threw himself upon his pillow again: +tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but +impenitently spurning himself, and no less hatefully and unprofitably +spurning all the good in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER IX +HEARING THE LAST OF IT + + +MRS. SPARSIT, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr. +Bounderby’s retreat, kept such a sharp look-out, night and day, under her +Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an +iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent mariners from that bold +rock her Roman nose and the dark and craggy region in its neighbourhood, +but for the placidity of her manner. Although it was hard to believe +that her retiring for the night could be anything but a form, so severely +wide awake were those classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did it +seem that her rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her +manner of sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty +mittens (they were constructed of a cool fabric like a meat-safe), or of +ambling to unknown places of destination with her foot in her cotton +stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that most observers would have been +constrained to suppose her a dove, embodied by some freak of nature, in +the earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook-beaked order. + +She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got +from story to story was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in +herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping +over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility +of locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance +in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never hurried. She would shoot with +consummate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be in full +possession of her breath and dignity on the moment of her arrival there. +Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go at a great pace. + +She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant conversation +with him soon after her arrival. She made him her stately curtsey in the +garden, one morning before breakfast. + +‘It appears but yesterday, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘that I had the +honour of receiving you at the Bank, when you were so good as to wish to +be made acquainted with Mr. Bounderby’s address.’ + +‘An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the course of +Ages,’ said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs. Sparsit with the +most indolent of all possible airs. + +‘We live in a singular world, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to have +made a remark, similar in effect, though not so epigrammatically +expressed.’ + +‘A singular world, I would say, sir,’ pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after +acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of her dark eyebrows, not +altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its dulcet +tones; ‘as regards the intimacies we form at one time, with individuals +we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, that on that +occasion you went so far as to say you were actually apprehensive of Miss +Gradgrind.’ + +‘Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves. I +availed myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and it is +unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit’s +talent for—in fact for anything requiring accuracy—with a combination of +strength of mind—and Family—is too habitually developed to admit of any +question.’ He was almost falling asleep over this compliment; it took +him so long to get through, and his mind wandered so much in the course +of its execution. + +‘You found Miss Gradgrind—I really cannot call her Mrs. Bounderby; it’s +very absurd of me—as youthful as I described her?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit, +sweetly. + +‘You drew her portrait perfectly,’ said Mr. Harthouse. ‘Presented her +dead image.’ + +‘Very engaging, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly to +revolve over one another. + +‘Highly so.’ + +‘It used to be considered,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘that Miss Gradgrind was +wanting in animation, but I confess she appears to me considerably and +strikingly improved in that respect. Ay, and indeed here _is_ Mr. +Bounderby!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head a great many times, as +if she had been talking and thinking of no one else. ‘How do you find +yourself this morning, sir? Pray let us see you cheerful, sir.’ + +Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and lightenings of his +load, had by this time begun to have the effect of making Mr. Bounderby +softer than usual towards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder than usual to most +other people from his wife downward. So, when Mrs. Sparsit said with +forced lightness of heart, ‘You want your breakfast, sir, but I dare say +Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to preside at the table,’ Mr. Bounderby +replied, ‘If I waited to be taken care of by my wife, ma’am, I believe +you know pretty well I should wait till Doomsday, so I’ll trouble _you_ +to take charge of the teapot.’ Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her +old position at table. + +This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. She was so +humble withal, that when Louisa appeared, she rose, protesting she never +could think of sitting in that place under existing circumstances, often +as she had had the honour of making Mr. Bounderby’s breakfast, before +Mrs. Gradgrind—she begged pardon, she meant to say Miss Bounderby—she +hoped to be excused, but she really could not get it right yet, though +she trusted to become familiar with it by and by—had assumed her present +position. It was only (she observed) because Miss Gradgrind happened to +be a little late, and Mr. Bounderby’s time was so very precious, and she +knew it of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the moment, +that she had taken the liberty of complying with his request; long as his +will had been a law to her. + +‘There! Stop where you are, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘stop where you +are! Mrs. Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of the trouble, I +believe.’ + +‘Don’t say that, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost with severity, +‘because that is very unkind to Mrs. Bounderby. And to be unkind is not +to be you, sir.’ + +‘You may set your mind at rest, ma’am.—You can take it very quietly, +can’t you, Loo?’ said Mr. Bounderby, in a blustering way to his wife. + +‘Of course. It is of no moment. Why should it be of any importance to +me?’ + +‘Why should it be of any importance to any one, Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?’ +said Mr. Bounderby, swelling with a sense of slight. ‘You attach too +much importance to these things, ma’am. By George, you’ll be corrupted +in some of your notions here. You are old-fashioned, ma’am. You are +behind Tom Gradgrind’s children’s time.’ + +‘What is the matter with you?’ asked Louisa, coldly surprised. ‘What has +given you offence?’ + +‘Offence!’ repeated Bounderby. ‘Do you suppose if there was any offence +given me, I shouldn’t name it, and request to have it corrected? I am a +straightforward man, I believe. I don’t go beating about for +side-winds.’ + +‘I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too diffident, or too +delicate,’ Louisa answered him composedly: ‘I have never made that +objection to you, either as a child or as a woman. I don’t understand +what you would have.’ + +‘Have?’ returned Mr. Bounderby. ‘Nothing. Otherwise, don’t you, Loo +Bounderby, know thoroughly well that I, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, +would have it?’ + +She looked at him, as he struck the table and made the teacups ring, with +a proud colour in her face that was a new change, Mr. Harthouse thought. +‘You are incomprehensible this morning,’ said Louisa. ‘Pray take no +further trouble to explain yourself. I am not curious to know your +meaning. What does it matter?’ + +Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon idly gay +on indifferent subjects. But from this day, the Sparsit action upon Mr. +Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more together, and +strengthened the dangerous alienation from her husband and confidence +against him with another, into which she had fallen by degrees so fine +that she could not retrace them if she tried. But whether she ever tried +or no, lay hidden in her own closed heart. + +Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular occasion, that, +assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after breakfast, and being then alone +with him in the hall, she imprinted a chaste kiss upon his hand, murmured +‘My benefactor!’ and retired, overwhelmed with grief. Yet it is an +indubitable fact, within the cognizance of this history, that five +minutes after he had left the house in the self-same hat, the same +descendant of the Scadgerses and connexion by matrimony of the Powlers, +shook her right-hand mitten at his portrait, made a contemptuous grimace +at that work of art, and said ‘Serve you right, you Noodle, and I am glad +of it.’ + +Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, when Bitzer appeared. Bitzer had +come down by train, shrieking and rattling over the long line of arches +that bestrode the wild country of past and present coal-pits, with an +express from Stone Lodge. It was a hasty note to inform Louisa that Mrs. +Gradgrind lay very ill. She had never been well within her daughter’s +knowledge; but, she had declined within the last few days, had continued +sinking all through the night, and was now as nearly dead, as her limited +capacity of being in any state that implied the ghost of an intention to +get out of it, allowed. + +Accompanied by the lightest of porters, fit colourless servitor at +Death’s door when Mrs. Gradgrind knocked, Louisa rumbled to Coketown, +over the coal-pits past and present, and was whirled into its smoky jaws. +She dismissed the messenger to his own devices, and rode away to her old +home. + +She had seldom been there since her marriage. Her father was usually +sifting and sifting at his parliamentary cinder-heap in London (without +being observed to turn up many precious articles among the rubbish), and +was still hard at it in the national dust-yard. Her mother had taken it +rather as a disturbance than otherwise, to be visited, as she reclined +upon her sofa; young people, Louisa felt herself all unfit for; Sissy she +had never softened to again, since the night when the stroller’s child +had raised her eyes to look at Mr. Bounderby’s intended wife. She had no +inducements to go back, and had rarely gone. + +Neither, as she approached her old home now, did any of the best +influences of old home descend upon her. The dreams of childhood—its +airy fables; its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of +the world beyond: so good to be believed in once, so good to be +remembered when outgrown, for then the least among them rises to the +stature of a great Charity in the heart, suffering little children to +come into the midst of it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in +the stony ways of this world, wherein it were better for all the children +of Adam that they should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and +not worldly-wise—what had she to do with these? Remembrances of how she +had journeyed to the little that she knew, by the enchanted roads of what +she and millions of innocent creatures had hoped and imagined; of how, +first coming upon Reason through the tender light of Fancy, she had seen +it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as itself; not a grim +Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and its big +dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, never to be moved by anything +but so many calculated tons of leverage—what had she to do with these? +Her remembrances of home and childhood were remembrances of the drying up +of every spring and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. The +golden waters were not there. They were flowing for the fertilization of +the land where grapes are gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles. + +She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon her, into the house +and into her mother’s room. Since the time of her leaving home, Sissy +had lived with the rest of the family on equal terms. Sissy was at her +mother’s side; and Jane, her sister, now ten or twelve years old, was in +the room. + +There was great trouble before it could be made known to Mrs. Gradgrind +that her eldest child was there. She reclined, propped up, from mere +habit, on a couch: as nearly in her old usual attitude, as anything so +helpless could be kept in. She had positively refused to take to her +bed; on the ground that if she did, she would never hear the last of it. + +Her feeble voice sounded so far away in her bundle of shawls, and the +sound of another voice addressing her seemed to take such a long time in +getting down to her ears, that she might have been lying at the bottom of +a well. The poor lady was nearer Truth than she ever had been: which had +much to do with it. + +On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was there, she replied, at +cross-purposes, that she had never called him by that name since he +married Louisa; that pending her choice of an objectionable name, she had +called him J; and that she could not at present depart from that +regulation, not being yet provided with a permanent substitute. Louisa +had sat by her for some minutes, and had spoken to her often, before she +arrived at a clear understanding who it was. She then seemed to come to +it all at once. + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘and I hope you are going on +satisfactorily to yourself. It was all your father’s doing. He set his +heart upon it. And he ought to know.’ + +‘I want to hear of you, mother; not of myself.’ + +‘You want to hear of me, my dear? That’s something new, I am sure, when +anybody wants to hear of me. Not at all well, Louisa. Very faint and +giddy.’ + +‘Are you in pain, dear mother?’ + +‘I think there’s a pain somewhere in the room,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘but +I couldn’t positively say that I have got it.’ + +After this strange speech, she lay silent for some time. Louisa, holding +her hand, could feel no pulse; but kissing it, could see a slight thin +thread of life in fluttering motion. + +‘You very seldom see your sister,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘She grows like +you. I wish you would look at her. Sissy, bring her here.’ + +She was brought, and stood with her hand in her sister’s. Louisa had +observed her with her arm round Sissy’s neck, and she felt the difference +of this approach. + +‘Do you see the likeness, Louisa?’ + +‘Yes, mother. I should think her like me. But—’ + +‘Eh! Yes, I always say so,’ Mrs. Gradgrind cried, with unexpected +quickness. ‘And that reminds me. I—I want to speak to you, my dear. +Sissy, my good girl, leave us alone a minute.’ Louisa had relinquished +the hand: had thought that her sister’s was a better and brighter face +than hers had ever been: had seen in it, not without a rising feeling of +resentment, even in that place and at that time, something of the +gentleness of the other face in the room; the sweet face with the +trusting eyes, made paler than watching and sympathy made it, by the rich +dark hair. + +Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw her lying with an awful lull upon +her face, like one who was floating away upon some great water, all +resistance over, content to be carried down the stream. She put the +shadow of a hand to her lips again, and recalled her. + +‘You were going to speak to me, mother.’ + +‘Eh? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You know your father is almost always +away now, and therefore I must write to him about it.’ + +‘About what, mother? Don’t be troubled. About what?’ + +‘You must remember, my dear, that whenever I have said anything, on any +subject, I have never heard the last of it: and consequently, that I have +long left off saying anything.’ + +‘I can hear you, mother.’ But, it was only by dint of bending down to +her ear, and at the same time attentively watching the lips as they +moved, that she could link such faint and broken sounds into any chain of +connexion. + +‘You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your brother. Ologies of +all kinds from morning to night. If there is any Ology left, of any +description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all I can say +is, I hope I shall never hear its name.’ + +‘I can hear you, mother, when you have strength to go on.’ This, to keep +her from floating away. + +‘But there is something—not an Ology at all—that your father has missed, +or forgotten, Louisa. I don’t know what it is. I have often sat with +Sissy near me, and thought about it. I shall never get its name now. +But your father may. It makes me restless. I want to write to him, to +find out for God’s sake, what it is. Give me a pen, give me a pen.’ + +Even the power of restlessness was gone, except from the poor head, which +could just turn from side to side. + +She fancied, however, that her request had been complied with, and that +the pen she could not have held was in her hand. It matters little what +figures of wonderful no-meaning she began to trace upon her wrappers. +The hand soon stopped in the midst of them; the light that had always +been feeble and dim behind the weak transparency, went out; and even Mrs. +Gradgrind, emerged from the shadow in which man walketh and disquieteth +himself in vain, took upon her the dread solemnity of the sages and +patriarchs. + + + + +CHAPTER X +MRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASE + + +MRS. SPARSIT’S nerves being slow to recover their tone, the worthy woman +made a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, where, +notwithstanding her anchorite turn of mind based upon her becoming +consciousness of her altered station, she resigned herself with noble +fortitude to lodging, as one may say, in clover, and feeding on the fat +of the land. During the whole term of this recess from the guardianship +of the Bank, Mrs. Sparsit was a pattern of consistency; continuing to +take such pity on Mr. Bounderby to his face, as is rarely taken on man, +and to call his portrait a Noodle to _its_ face, with the greatest +acrimony and contempt. + +Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive composition that Mrs. +Sparsit was a highly superior woman to perceive that he had that general +cross upon him in his deserts (for he had not yet settled what it was), +and further that Louisa would have objected to her as a frequent visitor +if it had comported with his greatness that she should object to anything +he chose to do, resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So +when her nerves were strung up to the pitch of again consuming +sweetbreads in solitude, he said to her at the dinner-table, on the day +before her departure, ‘I tell you what, ma’am; you shall come down here +of a Saturday, while the fine weather lasts, and stay till Monday.’ To +which Mrs. Sparsit returned, in effect, though not of the Mahomedan +persuasion: ‘To hear is to obey.’ + +Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman; but she took an idea in the +nature of an allegorical fancy, into her head. Much watching of Louisa, +and much consequent observation of her impenetrable demeanour, which +keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit’s edge, must have given her as +it were a lift, in the way of inspiration. She erected in her mind a +mighty Staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and +down those stairs, from day to day and hour to hour, she saw Louisa +coming. + +It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit’s life, to look up at her +staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down. Sometimes slowly, sometimes +quickly, sometimes several steps at one bout, sometimes stopping, never +turning back. If she had once turned back, it might have been the death +of Mrs. Sparsit in spleen and grief. + +She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on the day, when Mr. +Bounderby issued the weekly invitation recorded above. Mrs. Sparsit was +in good spirits, and inclined to be conversational. + +‘And pray, sir,’ said she, ‘if I may venture to ask a question +appertaining to any subject on which you show reserve—which is indeed +hardy in me, for I well know you have a reason for everything you do—have +you received intelligence respecting the robbery?’ + +‘Why, ma’am, no; not yet. Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect it +yet. Rome wasn’t built in a day, ma’am.’ + +‘Very true, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head. + +‘Nor yet in a week, ma’am.’ + +‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a gentle melancholy upon +her. + +‘In a similar manner, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘I can wait, you know. If +Romulus and Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait. They were +better off in their youth than I was, however. They had a she-wolf for a +nurse; I had only a she-wolf for a grandmother. She didn’t give any +milk, ma’am; she gave bruises. She was a regular Alderney at that.’ + +‘Ah!’ Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered. + +‘No, ma’am,’ continued Bounderby, ‘I have not heard anything more about +it. It’s in hand, though; and young Tom, who rather sticks to business +at present—something new for him; he hadn’t the schooling _I_ had—is +helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow over. +Do what you like under the rose, but don’t give a sign of what you’re +about; or half a hundred of ’em will combine together and get this fellow +who has bolted, out of reach for good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves +will grow in confidence by little and little, and we shall have ’em.’ + +‘Very sagacious indeed, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Very interesting. The +old woman you mentioned, sir—’ + +‘The old woman I mentioned, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, cutting the matter +short, as it was nothing to boast about, ‘is not laid hold of; but, she +may take her oath she will be, if that is any satisfaction to her +villainous old mind. In the mean time, ma’am, I am of opinion, if you +ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked about, the better.’ + +The same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting from her +packing operations, looked towards her great staircase and saw Louisa +still descending. + +She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking very low; +he stood leaning over her, as they whispered together, and his face +almost touched her hair. ‘If not quite!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, straining +her hawk’s eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant to hear a +word of their discourse, or even to know that they were speaking softly, +otherwise than from the expression of their figures; but what they said +was this: + +‘You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse?’ + +‘Oh, perfectly!’ + +‘His face, and his manner, and what he said?’ + +‘Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to be. +Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. It was knowing to hold forth, in the +humble-virtue school of eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at the +time, “My good fellow, you are over-doing this!”’ + +‘It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that man.’ + +‘My dear Louisa—as Tom says.’ Which he never did say. ‘You know no good +of the fellow?’ + +‘No, certainly.’ + +‘Nor of any other such person?’ + +‘How can I,’ she returned, with more of her first manner on her than he +had lately seen, ‘when I know nothing of them, men or women?’ + +‘My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submissive representation of +your devoted friend, who knows something of several varieties of his +excellent fellow-creatures—for excellent they are, I am quite ready to +believe, in spite of such little foibles as always helping themselves to +what they can get hold of. This fellow talks. Well; every fellow talks. +He professes morality. Well; all sorts of humbugs profess morality. +From the House of Commons to the House of Correction, there is a general +profession of morality, except among our people; it really is that +exception which makes our people quite reviving. You saw and heard the +case. Here was one of the fluffy classes pulled up extremely short by my +esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby—who, as we know, is not possessed of that +delicacy which would soften so tight a hand. The member of the fluffy +classes was injured, exasperated, left the house grumbling, met somebody +who proposed to him to go in for some share in this Bank business, went +in, put something in his pocket which had nothing in it before, and +relieved his mind extremely. Really he would have been an uncommon, +instead of a common, fellow, if he had not availed himself of such an +opportunity. Or he may have originated it altogether, if he had the +cleverness.’ + +‘I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,’ returned Louisa, after +sitting thoughtful awhile, ‘to be so ready to agree with you, and to be +so lightened in my heart by what you say.’ + +‘I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse. I have talked it over +with my friend Tom more than once—of course I remain on terms of perfect +confidence with Tom—and he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of his. +Will you walk?’ + +They strolled away, among the lanes beginning to be indistinct in the +twilight—she leaning on his arm—and she little thought how she was going +down, down, down, Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase. + +Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing. When Louisa had arrived at +the bottom and disappeared in the gulf, it might fall in upon her if it +would; but, until then, there it was to be, a Building, before Mrs. +Sparsit’s eyes. And there Louisa always was, upon it. + +And always gliding down, down, down! + +Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come and go; she heard of him here and +there; she saw the changes of the face he had studied; she, too, remarked +to a nicety how and when it clouded, how and when it cleared; she kept +her black eyes wide open, with no touch of pity, with no touch of +compunction, all absorbed in interest. In the interest of seeing her, +ever drawing, with no hand to stay her, nearer and nearer to the bottom +of this new Giant’s Staircase. + +With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby as contradistinguished from his +portrait, Mrs. Sparsit had not the smallest intention of interrupting the +descent. Eager to see it accomplished, and yet patient, she waited for +the last fall, as for the ripeness and fulness of the harvest of her +hopes. Hushed in expectancy, she kept her wary gaze upon the stairs; and +seldom so much as darkly shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), at +the figure coming down. + + + + +CHAPTER XI +LOWER AND LOWER + + +THE figure descended the great stairs, steadily, steadily; always +verging, like a weight in deep water, to the black gulf at the bottom. + +Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife’s decease, made an expedition from +London, and buried her in a business-like manner. He then returned with +promptitude to the national cinder-heap, and resumed his sifting for the +odds and ends he wanted, and his throwing of the dust about into the eyes +of other people who wanted other odds and ends—in fact resumed his +parliamentary duties. + +In the meantime, Mrs. Sparsit kept unwinking watch and ward. Separated +from her staircase, all the week, by the length of iron road dividing +Coketown from the country house, she yet maintained her cat-like +observation of Louisa, through her husband, through her brother, through +James Harthouse, through the outsides of letters and packets, through +everything animate and inanimate that at any time went near the stairs. +‘Your foot on the last step, my lady,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, apostrophizing +the descending figure, with the aid of her threatening mitten, ‘and all +your art shall never blind me.’ + +Art or nature though, the original stock of Louisa’s character or the +graft of circumstances upon it,—her curious reserve did baffle, while it +stimulated, one as sagacious as Mrs. Sparsit. There were times when Mr. +James Harthouse was not sure of her. There were times when he could not +read the face he had studied so long; and when this lonely girl was a +greater mystery to him, than any woman of the world with a ring of +satellites to help her. + +So the time went on; until it happened that Mr. Bounderby was called away +from home by business which required his presence elsewhere, for three or +four days. It was on a Friday that he intimated this to Mrs. Sparsit at +the Bank, adding: ‘But you’ll go down to-morrow, ma’am, all the same. +You’ll go down just as if I was there. It will make no difference to +you.’ + +‘Pray, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, reproachfully, ‘let me beg you not to +say that. Your absence will make a vast difference to me, sir, as I +think you very well know.’ + +‘Well, ma’am, then you must get on in my absence as well as you can,’ +said Mr. Bounderby, not displeased. + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ retorted Mrs. Sparsit, ‘your will is to me a law, sir; +otherwise, it might be my inclination to dispute your kind commands, not +feeling sure that it will be quite so agreeable to Miss Gradgrind to +receive me, as it ever is to your own munificent hospitality. But you +shall say no more, sir. I will go, upon your invitation.’ + +‘Why, when I invite you to my house, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, opening his +eyes, ‘I should hope you want no other invitation.’ + +‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I should hope not. Say no +more, sir. I would, sir, I could see you gay again.’ + +‘What do you mean, ma’am?’ blustered Bounderby. + +‘Sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, ‘there was wont to be an elasticity in you +which I sadly miss. Be buoyant, sir!’ + +Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this difficult adjuration, backed +up by her compassionate eye, could only scratch his head in a feeble and +ridiculous manner, and afterwards assert himself at a distance, by being +heard to bully the small fry of business all the morning. + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon, when her patron was gone on +his journey, and the Bank was closing, ‘present my compliments to young +Mr. Thomas, and ask him if he would step up and partake of a lamb chop +and walnut ketchup, with a glass of India ale?’ Young Mr. Thomas being +usually ready for anything in that way, returned a gracious answer, and +followed on its heels. ‘Mr. Thomas,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘these plain +viands being on table, I thought you might be tempted.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Mrs. Sparsit,’ said the whelp. And gloomily fell to. + +‘How is Mr. Harthouse, Mr. Tom?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Oh, he’s all right,’ said Tom. + +‘Where may he be at present?’ Mrs. Sparsit asked in a light +conversational manner, after mentally devoting the whelp to the Furies +for being so uncommunicative. + +‘He is shooting in Yorkshire,’ said Tom. ‘Sent Loo a basket half as big +as a church, yesterday.’ + +‘The kind of gentleman, now,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly, ‘whom one might +wager to be a good shot!’ + +‘Crack,’ said Tom. + +He had long been a down-looking young fellow, but this characteristic had +so increased of late, that he never raised his eyes to any face for three +seconds together. Mrs. Sparsit consequently had ample means of watching +his looks, if she were so inclined. + +‘Mr. Harthouse is a great favourite of mine,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘as +indeed he is of most people. May we expect to see him again shortly, Mr. +Tom?’ + +‘Why, _I_ expect to see him to-morrow,’ returned the whelp. + +‘Good news!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, blandly. + +‘I have got an appointment with him to meet him in the evening at the +station here,’ said Tom, ‘and I am going to dine with him afterwards, I +believe. He is not coming down to the country house for a week or so, +being due somewhere else. At least, he says so; but I shouldn’t wonder +if he was to stop here over Sunday, and stray that way.’ + +‘Which reminds me!’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Would you remember a message to +your sister, Mr. Tom, if I was to charge you with one?’ + +‘Well? I’ll try,’ returned the reluctant whelp, ‘if it isn’t a long un.’ + +‘It is merely my respectful compliments,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and I fear +I may not trouble her with my society this week; being still a little +nervous, and better perhaps by my poor self.’ + +‘Oh! If that’s all,’ observed Tom, ‘it wouldn’t much matter, even if I +was to forget it, for Loo’s not likely to think of you unless she sees +you.’ + +Having paid for his entertainment with this agreeable compliment, he +relapsed into a hangdog silence until there was no more India ale left, +when he said, ‘Well, Mrs. Sparsit, I must be off!’ and went off. + +Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at her window all day long looking +at the customers coming in and out, watching the postmen, keeping an eye +on the general traffic of the street, revolving many things in her mind, +but, above all, keeping her attention on her staircase. The evening +come, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and went quietly out: having her +reasons for hovering in a furtive way about the station by which a +passenger would arrive from Yorkshire, and for preferring to peep into it +round pillars and corners, and out of ladies’ waiting-room windows, to +appearing in its precincts openly. + +Tom was in attendance, and loitered about until the expected train came +in. It brought no Mr. Harthouse. Tom waited until the crowd had +dispersed, and the bustle was over; and then referred to a posted list of +trains, and took counsel with porters. That done, he strolled away idly, +stopping in the street and looking up it and down it, and lifting his hat +off and putting it on again, and yawning and stretching himself, and +exhibiting all the symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in one who +had still to wait until the next train should come in, an hour and forty +minutes hence. + +‘This is a device to keep him out of the way,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +starting from the dull office window whence she had watched him last. +‘Harthouse is with his sister now!’ + +It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she shot off with her +utmost swiftness to work it out. The station for the country house was +at the opposite end of the town, the time was short, the road not easy; +but she was so quick in pouncing on a disengaged coach, so quick in +darting out of it, producing her money, seizing her ticket, and diving +into the train, that she was borne along the arches spanning the land of +coal-pits past and present, as if she had been caught up in a cloud and +whirled away. + +All the journey, immovable in the air though never left behind; plain to +the dark eyes of her mind, as the electric wires which ruled a colossal +strip of music-paper out of the evening sky, were plain to the dark eyes +of her body; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, with the figure coming down. +Very near the bottom now. Upon the brink of the abyss. + +An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw beneath its +drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass down the +wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, cross it into a +green lane, and become hidden in a summer-growth of leaves and branches. +One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their nests, and a bat heavily +crossing and recrossing her, and the reek of her own tread in the thick +dust that felt like velvet, were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she +very softly closed a gate. + +She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and went round +it, peeping between the leaves at the lower windows. Most of them were +open, as they usually were in such warm weather, but there were no lights +yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden with no better effect. +She thought of the wood, and stole towards it, heedless of long grass and +briers: of worms, snails, and slugs, and all the creeping things that be. +With her dark eyes and her hook nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. +Sparsit softly crushed her way through the thick undergrowth, so intent +upon her object that she probably would have done no less, if the wood +had been a wood of adders. + +Hark! + +The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their nests, fascinated by +the glittering of Mrs. Sparsit’s eyes in the gloom, as she stopped and +listened. + +Low voices close at hand. His voice and hers. The appointment _was_ a +device to keep the brother away! There they were yonder, by the felled +tree. + +Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. Sparsit advanced closer to them. +She drew herself up, and stood behind a tree, like Robinson Crusoe in his +ambuscade against the savages; so near to them that at a spring, and that +no great one, she could have touched them both. He was there secretly, +and had not shown himself at the house. He had come on horseback, and +must have passed through the neighbouring fields; for his horse was tied +to the meadow side of the fence, within a few paces. + +‘My dearest love,’ said he, ‘what could I do? Knowing you were alone, +was it possible that I could stay away?’ + +‘You may hang your head, to make yourself the more attractive; _I_ don’t +know what they see in you when you hold it up,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit; +‘but you little think, my dearest love, whose eyes are on you!’ + +That she hung her head, was certain. She urged him to go away, she +commanded him to go away; but she neither turned her face to him, nor +raised it. Yet it was remarkable that she sat as still as ever the +amiable woman in ambuscade had seen her sit, at any period in her life. +Her hands rested in one another, like the hands of a statue; and even her +manner of speaking was not hurried. + +‘My dear child,’ said Harthouse; Mrs. Sparsit saw with delight that his +arm embraced her; ‘will you not bear with my society for a little while?’ + +‘Not here.’ + +‘Where, Louisa? + +‘Not here.’ + +‘But we have so little time to make so much of, and I have come so far, +and am altogether so devoted, and distracted. There never was a slave at +once so devoted and ill-used by his mistress. To look for your sunny +welcome that has warmed me into life, and to be received in your frozen +manner, is heart-rending.’ + +‘Am I to say again, that I must be left to myself here?’ + +‘But we must meet, my dear Louisa. Where shall we meet?’ + +They both started. The listener started, guiltily, too; for she thought +there was another listener among the trees. It was only rain, beginning +to fall fast, in heavy drops. + +‘Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, innocently supposing +that its master is at home and will be charmed to receive me?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed; though I am the most +unfortunate fellow in the world, I believe, to have been insensible to +all other women, and to have fallen prostrate at last under the foot of +the most beautiful, and the most engaging, and the most imperious. My +dearest Louisa, I cannot go myself, or let you go, in this hard abuse of +your power.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling arm, and heard him +then and there, within her (Mrs. Sparsit’s) greedy hearing, tell her how +he loved her, and how she was the stake for which he ardently desired to +play away all that he had in life. The objects he had lately pursued, +turned worthless beside her; such success as was almost in his grasp, he +flung away from him like the dirt it was, compared with her. Its +pursuit, nevertheless, if it kept him near her, or its renunciation if it +took him from her, or flight if she shared it, or secrecy if she +commanded it, or any fate, or every fate, all was alike to him, so that +she was true to him,—the man who had seen how cast away she was, whom she +had inspired at their first meeting with an admiration, an interest, of +which he had thought himself incapable, whom she had received into her +confidence, who was devoted to her and adored her. All this, and more, +in his hurry, and in hers, in the whirl of her own gratified malice, in +the dread of being discovered, in the rapidly increasing noise of heavy +rain among the leaves, and a thunderstorm rolling up—Mrs. Sparsit +received into her mind, set off with such an unavoidable halo of +confusion and indistinctness, that when at length he climbed the fence +and led his horse away, she was not sure where they were to meet, or +when, except that they had said it was to be that night. + +But one of them yet remained in the darkness before her; and while she +tracked that one she must be right. ‘Oh, my dearest love,’ thought Mrs. +Sparsit, ‘you little think how well attended you are!’ + +Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her enter the house. What +to do next? It rained now, in a sheet of water. Mrs. Sparsit’s white +stockings were of many colours, green predominating; prickly things were +in her shoes; caterpillars slung themselves, in hammocks of their own +making, from various parts of her dress; rills ran from her bonnet, and +her Roman nose. In such condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden in the +density of the shrubbery, considering what next? + +Lo, Louisa coming out of the house! Hastily cloaked and muffled, and +stealing away. She elopes! She falls from the lowermost stair, and is +swallowed up in the gulf. + +Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined step, she +struck into a side-path parallel with the ride. Mrs. Sparsit followed in +the shadow of the trees, at but a short distance; for it was not easy to +keep a figure in view going quickly through the umbrageous darkness. + +When she stopped to close the side-gate without noise, Mrs. Sparsit +stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit went on. She went by the way +Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged from the green lane, crossed the stony +road, and ascended the wooden steps to the railroad. A train for +Coketown would come through presently, Mrs. Sparsit knew; so she +understood Coketown to be her first place of destination. + +In Mrs. Sparsit’s limp and streaming state, no extensive precautions were +necessary to change her usual appearance; but, she stopped under the lee +of the station wall, tumbled her shawl into a new shape, and put it on +over her bonnet. So disguised she had no fear of being recognized when +she followed up the railroad steps, and paid her money in the small +office. Louisa sat waiting in a corner. Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in +another corner. Both listened to the thunder, which was loud, and to the +rain, as it washed off the roof, and pattered on the parapets of the +arches. Two or three lamps were rained out and blown out; so, both saw +the lightning to advantage as it quivered and zigzagged on the iron +tracks. + +The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, gradually deepening +to a complaint of the heart, announced the train. Fire and steam, and +smoke, and red light; a hiss, a crash, a bell, and a shriek; Louisa put +into one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into another: the little station a +desert speck in the thunderstorm. + +Though her teeth chattered in her head from wet and cold, Mrs. Sparsit +exulted hugely. The figure had plunged down the precipice, and she felt +herself, as it were, attending on the body. Could she, who had been so +active in the getting up of the funeral triumph, do less than exult? +‘She will be at Coketown long before him,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, ‘though +his horse is never so good. Where will she wait for him? And where will +they go together? Patience. We shall see.’ + +The tremendous rain occasioned infinite confusion, when the train stopped +at its destination. Gutters and pipes had burst, drains had overflowed, +and streets were under water. In the first instant of alighting, Mrs. +Sparsit turned her distracted eyes towards the waiting coaches, which +were in great request. ‘She will get into one,’ she considered, ‘and +will be away before I can follow in another. At all risks of being run +over, I must see the number, and hear the order given to the coachman.’ + +But, Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calculation. Louisa got into no +coach, and was already gone. The black eyes kept upon the +railroad-carriage in which she had travelled, settled upon it a moment +too late. The door not being opened after several minutes, Mrs. Sparsit +passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, looked in, and found it empty. +Wet through and through: with her feet squelching and squashing in her +shoes whenever she moved; with a rash of rain upon her classical visage; +with a bonnet like an over-ripe fig; with all her clothes spoiled; with +damp impressions of every button, string, and hook-and-eye she wore, +printed off upon her highly connected back; with a stagnant verdure on +her general exterior, such as accumulates on an old park fence in a +mouldy lane; Mrs. Sparsit had no resource but to burst into tears of +bitterness and say, ‘I have lost her!’ + + + + +CHAPTER XII +DOWN + + +THE national dustmen, after entertaining one another with a great many +noisy little fights among themselves, had dispersed for the present, and +Mr. Gradgrind was at home for the vacation. + +He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical clock, proving +something no doubt—probably, in the main, that the Good Samaritan was a +Bad Economist. The noise of the rain did not disturb him much; but it +attracted his attention sufficiently to make him raise his head +sometimes, as if he were rather remonstrating with the elements. When it +thundered very loudly, he glanced towards Coketown, having it in his mind +that some of the tall chimneys might be struck by lightning. + +The thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain was pouring down like +a deluge, when the door of his room opened. He looked round the lamp +upon his table, and saw, with amazement, his eldest daughter. + +‘Louisa!’ + +‘Father, I want to speak to you.’ + +‘What is the matter? How strange you look! And good Heaven,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, wondering more and more, ‘have you come here exposed to this +storm?’ + +She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly knew. ‘Yes.’ Then she +uncovered her head, and letting her cloak and hood fall where they might, +stood looking at him: so colourless, so dishevelled, so defiant and +despairing, that he was afraid of her. + +‘What is it? I conjure you, Louisa, tell me what is the matter.’ + +She dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold hand on his arm. + +‘Father, you have trained me from my cradle?’ + +‘Yes, Louisa.’ + +‘I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.’ + +He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: ‘Curse the hour? +Curse the hour?’ + +‘How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable +things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the +graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you +done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that should have +bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!’ + +She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom. + +‘If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the void in +which my whole life sinks. I did not mean to say this; but, father, you +remember the last time we conversed in this room?’ + +He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that it was with +difficulty he answered, ‘Yes, Louisa.’ + +‘What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to my lips then, if you +had given me a moment’s help. I don’t reproach you, father. What you +have never nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself; but O! if +you had only done so long ago, or if you had only neglected me, what a +much better and much happier creature I should have been this day!’ + +On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon his hand and +groaned aloud. + +‘Father, if you had known, when we were last together here, what even I +feared while I strove against it—as it has been my task from infancy to +strive against every natural prompting that has arisen in my heart; if +you had known that there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, +affections, weaknesses capable of being cherished into strength, defying +all the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to his +arithmetic than his Creator is,—would you have given me to the husband +whom I am now sure that I hate?’ + +He said, ‘No. No, my poor child.’ + +‘Would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost and blight that have +hardened and spoiled me? Would you have robbed me—for no one’s +enrichment—only for the greater desolation of this world—of the +immaterial part of my life, the spring and summer of my belief, my refuge +from what is sordid and bad in the real things around me, my school in +which I should have learned to be more humble and more trusting with +them, and to hope in my little sphere to make them better?’ + +‘O no, no. No, Louisa.’ + +‘Yet, father, if I had been stone blind; if I had groped my way by my +sense of touch, and had been free, while I knew the shapes and surfaces +of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat, in regard to them; I should +have been a million times wiser, happier, more loving, more contented, +more innocent and human in all good respects, than I am with the eyes I +have. Now, hear what I have come to say.’ + +He moved, to support her with his arm. She rising as he did so, they +stood close together: she, with a hand upon his shoulder, looking fixedly +in his face. + +‘With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which have never been for a +moment appeased; with an ardent impulse towards some region where rules, +and figures, and definitions were not quite absolute; I have grown up, +battling every inch of my way.’ + +‘I never knew you were unhappy, my child.’ + +‘Father, I always knew it. In this strife I have almost repulsed and +crushed my better angel into a demon. What I have learned has left me +doubting, misbelieving, despising, regretting, what I have not learned; +and my dismal resource has been to think that life would soon go by, and +that nothing in it could be worth the pain and trouble of a contest.’ + +‘And you so young, Louisa!’ he said with pity. + +‘And I so young. In this condition, father—for I show you now, without +fear or favour, the ordinary deadened state of my mind as I know it—you +proposed my husband to me. I took him. I never made a pretence to him +or you that I loved him. I knew, and, father, you knew, and he knew, +that I never did. I was not wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of +being pleasant and useful to Tom. I made that wild escape into something +visionary, and have slowly found out how wild it was. But Tom had been +the subject of all the little tenderness of my life; perhaps he became so +because I knew so well how to pity him. It matters little now, except as +it may dispose you to think more leniently of his errors.’ + +As her father held her in his arms, she put her other hand upon his other +shoulder, and still looking fixedly in his face, went on. + +‘When I was irrevocably married, there rose up into rebellion against the +tie, the old strife, made fiercer by all those causes of disparity which +arise out of our two individual natures, and which no general laws shall +ever rule or state for me, father, until they shall be able to direct the +anatomist where to strike his knife into the secrets of my soul.’ + +‘Louisa!’ he said, and said imploringly; for he well remembered what had +passed between them in their former interview. + +‘I do not reproach you, father, I make no complaint. I am here with +another object.’ + +‘What can I do, child? Ask me what you will.’ + +‘I am coming to it. Father, chance then threw into my way a new +acquaintance; a man such as I had had no experience of; used to the +world; light, polished, easy; making no pretences; avowing the low +estimate of everything, that I was half afraid to form in secret; +conveying to me almost immediately, though I don’t know how or by what +degrees, that he understood me, and read my thoughts. I could not find +that he was worse than I. There seemed to be a near affinity between us. +I only wondered it should be worth his while, who cared for nothing else, +to care so much for me.’ + +‘For you, Louisa!’ + +Her father might instinctively have loosened his hold, but that he felt +her strength departing from her, and saw a wild dilating fire in the eyes +steadfastly regarding him. + +‘I say nothing of his plea for claiming my confidence. It matters very +little how he gained it. Father, he did gain it. What you know of the +story of my marriage, he soon knew, just as well.’ + +Her father’s face was ashy white, and he held her in both his arms. + +‘I have done no worse, I have not disgraced you. But if you ask me +whether I have loved him, or do love him, I tell you plainly, father, +that it may be so. I don’t know.’ + +She took her hands suddenly from his shoulders, and pressed them both +upon her side; while in her face, not like itself—and in her figure, +drawn up, resolute to finish by a last effort what she had to say—the +feelings long suppressed broke loose. + +‘This night, my husband being away, he has been with me, declaring +himself my lover. This minute he expects me, for I could release myself +of his presence by no other means. I do not know that I am sorry, I do +not know that I am ashamed, I do not know that I am degraded in my own +esteem. All that I know is, your philosophy and your teaching will not +save me. Now, father, you have brought me to this. Save me by some +other means!’ + +He tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking on the floor, but +she cried out in a terrible voice, ‘I shall die if you hold me! Let me +fall upon the ground!’ And he laid her down there, and saw the pride of +his heart and the triumph of his system, lying, an insensible heap, at +his feet. + + * * * * * + + END OF THE SECOND BOOK + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD +_GARNERING_ + + +CHAPTER I +ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL + + +LOUISA awoke from a torpor, and her eyes languidly opened on her old bed +at home, and her old room. It seemed, at first, as if all that had +happened since the days when these objects were familiar to her were the +shadows of a dream, but gradually, as the objects became more real to her +sight, the events became more real to her mind. + +She could scarcely move her head for pain and heaviness, her eyes were +strained and sore, and she was very weak. A curious passive inattention +had such possession of her, that the presence of her little sister in the +room did not attract her notice for some time. Even when their eyes had +met, and her sister had approached the bed, Louisa lay for minutes +looking at her in silence, and suffering her timidly to hold her passive +hand, before she asked: + +‘When was I brought to this room?’ + +‘Last night, Louisa.’ + +‘Who brought me here?’ + +‘Sissy, I believe.’ + +‘Why do you believe so?’ + +‘Because I found her here this morning. She didn’t come to my bedside to +wake me, as she always does; and I went to look for her. She was not in +her own room either; and I went looking for her all over the house, until +I found her here taking care of you and cooling your head. Will you see +father? Sissy said I was to tell him when you woke.’ + +‘What a beaming face you have, Jane!’ said Louisa, as her young +sister—timidly still—bent down to kiss her. + +‘Have I? I am very glad you think so. I am sure it must be Sissy’s +doing.’ + +The arm Louisa had begun to twine around her neck, unbent itself. ‘You +can tell father if you will.’ Then, staying her for a moment, she said, +‘It was you who made my room so cheerful, and gave it this look of +welcome?’ + +‘Oh no, Louisa, it was done before I came. It was—’ + +Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard no more. When her sister had +withdrawn, she turned her head back again, and lay with her face towards +the door, until it opened and her father entered. + +He had a jaded anxious look upon him, and his hand, usually steady, +trembled in hers. He sat down at the side of the bed, tenderly asking +how she was, and dwelling on the necessity of her keeping very quiet +after her agitation and exposure to the weather last night. He spoke in +a subdued and troubled voice, very different from his usual dictatorial +manner; and was often at a loss for words. + +‘My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.’ He was so much at a loss at that +place, that he stopped altogether. He tried again. + +‘My unfortunate child.’ The place was so difficult to get over, that he +tried again. + +‘It would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to endeavour to tell you how +overwhelmed I have been, and still am, by what broke upon me last night. +The ground on which I stand has ceased to be solid under my feet. The +only support on which I leaned, and the strength of which it seemed, and +still does seem, impossible to question, has given way in an instant. I +am stunned by these discoveries. I have no selfish meaning in what I +say; but I find the shock of what broke upon me last night, to be very +heavy indeed.’ + +She could give him no comfort herein. She had suffered the wreck of her +whole life upon the rock. + +‘I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by any happy chance undeceived +me some time ago, it would have been better for us both; better for your +peace, and better for mine. For I am sensible that it may not have been +a part of my system to invite any confidence of that kind. I had proved +my—my system to myself, and I have rigidly administered it; and I must +bear the responsibility of its failures. I only entreat you to believe, +my favourite child, that I have meant to do right.’ + +He said it earnestly, and to do him justice he had. In gauging +fathomless deeps with his little mean excise-rod, and in staggering over +the universe with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had meant to do +great things. Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled +about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of +purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept. + +‘I am well assured of what you say, father. I know I have been your +favourite child. I know you have intended to make me happy. I have +never blamed you, and I never shall.’ + +He took her outstretched hand, and retained it in his. + +‘My dear, I have remained all night at my table, pondering again and +again on what has so painfully passed between us. When I consider your +character; when I consider that what has been known to me for hours, has +been concealed by you for years; when I consider under what immediate +pressure it has been forced from you at last; I come to the conclusion +that I cannot but mistrust myself.’ + +He might have added more than all, when he saw the face now looking at +him. He did add it in effect, perhaps, as he softly moved her scattered +hair from her forehead with his hand. Such little actions, slight in +another man, were very noticeable in him; and his daughter received them +as if they had been words of contrition. + +‘But,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with hesitation, as well as with a +wretched sense of happiness, ‘if I see reason to mistrust myself for the +past, Louisa, I should also mistrust myself for the present and the +future. To speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am far from feeling +convinced now, however differently I might have felt only this time +yesterday, that I am fit for the trust you repose in me; that I know how +to respond to the appeal you have come home to make to me; that I have +the right instinct—supposing it for the moment to be some quality of that +nature—how to help you, and to set you right, my child.’ + +She had turned upon her pillow, and lay with her face upon her arm, so +that he could not see it. All her wildness and passion had subsided; +but, though softened, she was not in tears. Her father was changed in +nothing so much as in the respect that he would have been glad to see her +in tears. + +‘Some persons hold,’ he pursued, still hesitating, ‘that there is a +wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart. I have not +supposed so; but, as I have said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed +the head to be all-sufficient. It may not be all-sufficient; how can I +venture this morning to say it is! If that other kind of wisdom should +be what I have neglected, and should be the instinct that is wanted, +Louisa—’ + +He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he were half unwilling to admit it +even now. She made him no answer, lying before him on her bed, still +half-dressed, much as he had seen her lying on the floor of his room last +night. + +‘Louisa,’ and his hand rested on her hair again, ‘I have been absent from +here, my dear, a good deal of late; and though your sister’s training has +been pursued according to—the system,’ he appeared to come to that word +with great reluctance always, ‘it has necessarily been modified by daily +associations begun, in her case, at an early age. I ask you—ignorantly +and humbly, my daughter—for the better, do you think?’ + +‘Father,’ she replied, without stirring, ‘if any harmony has been +awakened in her young breast that was mute in mine until it turned to +discord, let her thank Heaven for it, and go upon her happier way, taking +it as her greatest blessing that she has avoided my way.’ + +‘O my child, my child!’ he said, in a forlorn manner, ‘I am an unhappy +man to see you thus! What avails it to me that you do not reproach me, +if I so bitterly reproach myself!’ He bent his head, and spoke low to +her. ‘Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change may have been slowly +working about me in this house, by mere love and gratitude: that what the +Head had left undone and could not do, the Heart may have been doing +silently. Can it be so?’ + +She made him no reply. + +‘I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How could I be arrogant, and +you before me! Can it be so? Is it so, my dear?’ He looked upon her +once more, lying cast away there; and without another word went out of +the room. He had not been long gone, when she heard a light tread near +the door, and knew that some one stood beside her. + +She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she should be seen in her +distress, and that the involuntary look she had so resented should come +to this fulfilment, smouldered within her like an unwholesome fire. All +closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. The air that would be +healthful to the earth, the water that would enrich it, the heat that +would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So in her bosom even now; the +strongest qualities she possessed, long turned upon themselves, became a +heap of obduracy, that rose against a friend. + +It was well that soft touch came upon her neck, and that she understood +herself to be supposed to have fallen asleep. The sympathetic hand did +not claim her resentment. Let it lie there, let it lie. + +It lay there, warming into life a crowd of gentler thoughts; and she +rested. As she softened with the quiet, and the consciousness of being +so watched, some tears made their way into her eyes. The face touched +hers, and she knew that there were tears upon it too, and she the cause +of them. + +As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat up, Sissy retired, so that +she stood placidly near the bedside. + +‘I hope I have not disturbed you. I have come to ask if you would let me +stay with you?’ + +‘Why should you stay with me? My sister will miss you. You are +everything to her.’ + +‘Am I?’ returned Sissy, shaking her head. ‘I would be something to you, +if I might.’ + +‘What?’ said Louisa, almost sternly. + +‘Whatever you want most, if I could be that. At all events, I would like +to try to be as near it as I can. And however far off that may be, I +will never tire of trying. Will you let me?’ + +‘My father sent you to ask me.’ + +‘No indeed,’ replied Sissy. ‘He told me that I might come in now, but he +sent me away from the room this morning—or at least—’ + +She hesitated and stopped. + +‘At least, what?’ said Louisa, with her searching eyes upon her. + +‘I thought it best myself that I should be sent away, for I felt very +uncertain whether you would like to find me here.’ + +‘Have I always hated you so much?’ + +‘I hope not, for I have always loved you, and have always wished that you +should know it. But you changed to me a little, shortly before you left +home. Not that I wondered at it. You knew so much, and I knew so +little, and it was so natural in many ways, going as you were among other +friends, that I had nothing to complain of, and was not at all hurt.’ + +Her colour rose as she said it modestly and hurriedly. Louisa understood +the loving pretence, and her heart smote her. + +‘May I try?’ said Sissy, emboldened to raise her hand to the neck that +was insensibly drooping towards her. + +Louisa, taking down the hand that would have embraced her in another +moment, held it in one of hers, and answered: + +‘First, Sissy, do you know what I am? I am so proud and so hardened, so +confused and troubled, so resentful and unjust to every one and to +myself, that everything is stormy, dark, and wicked to me. Does not that +repel you?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘I am so unhappy, and all that should have made me otherwise is so laid +waste, that if I had been bereft of sense to this hour, and instead of +being as learned as you think me, had to begin to acquire the simplest +truths, I could not want a guide to peace, contentment, honour, all the +good of which I am quite devoid, more abjectly than I do. Does not that +repel you?’ + +‘No!’ + +In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up of her old +devoted spirit, the once deserted girl shone like a beautiful light upon +the darkness of the other. + +Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp her neck and join its fellow +there. She fell upon her knees, and clinging to this stroller’s child +looked up at her almost with veneration. + +‘Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have compassion on my great need, and let +me lay this head of mine upon a loving heart!’ + +‘O lay it here!’ cried Sissy. ‘Lay it here, my dear.’ + + + + +CHAPTER II +VERY RIDICULOUS + + +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE passed a whole night and a day in a state of so much +hurry, that the World, with its best glass in his eye, would scarcely +have recognized him during that insane interval, as the brother Jem of +the honourable and jocular member. He was positively agitated. He +several times spoke with an emphasis, similar to the vulgar manner. He +went in and went out in an unaccountable way, like a man without an +object. He rode like a highwayman. In a word, he was so horribly bored +by existing circumstances, that he forgot to go in for boredom in the +manner prescribed by the authorities. + +After putting his horse at Coketown through the storm, as if it were a +leap, he waited up all night: from time to time ringing his bell with the +greatest fury, charging the porter who kept watch with delinquency in +withholding letters or messages that could not fail to have been +entrusted to him, and demanding restitution on the spot. The dawn +coming, the morning coming, and the day coming, and neither message nor +letter coming with either, he went down to the country house. There, the +report was, Mr. Bounderby away, and Mrs. Bounderby in town. Left for +town suddenly last evening. Not even known to be gone until receipt of +message, importing that her return was not to be expected for the +present. + +In these circumstances he had nothing for it but to follow her to town. +He went to the house in town. Mrs. Bounderby not there. He looked in at +the Bank. Mr. Bounderby away and Mrs. Sparsit away. Mrs. Sparsit away? +Who could have been reduced to sudden extremity for the company of that +griffin! + +‘Well! I don’t know,’ said Tom, who had his own reasons for being uneasy +about it. ‘She was off somewhere at daybreak this morning. She’s always +full of mystery; I hate her. So I do that white chap; he’s always got +his blinking eyes upon a fellow.’ + +‘Where were you last night, Tom?’ + +‘Where was I last night!’ said Tom. ‘Come! I like that. I was waiting +for you, Mr. Harthouse, till it came down as _I_ never saw it come down +before. Where was I too! Where were you, you mean.’ + +‘I was prevented from coming—detained.’ + +‘Detained!’ murmured Tom. ‘Two of us were detained. I was detained +looking for you, till I lost every train but the mail. It would have +been a pleasant job to go down by that on such a night, and have to walk +home through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in town after all.’ + +‘Where?’ + +‘Where? Why, in my own bed at Bounderby’s.’ + +‘Did you see your sister?’ + +‘How the deuce,’ returned Tom, staring, ‘could I see my sister when she +was fifteen miles off?’ + +Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman to whom he was so true +a friend, Mr. Harthouse disembarrassed himself of that interview with the +smallest conceivable amount of ceremony, and debated for the hundredth +time what all this could mean? He made only one thing clear. It was, +that whether she was in town or out of town, whether he had been +premature with her who was so hard to comprehend, or she had lost +courage, or they were discovered, or some mischance or mistake, at +present incomprehensible, had occurred, he must remain to confront his +fortune, whatever it was. The hotel where he was known to live when +condemned to that region of blackness, was the stake to which he was +tied. As to all the rest—What will be, will be. + +‘So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or an assignation, or a +penitent remonstrance, or an impromptu wrestle with my friend Bounderby +in the Lancashire manner—which would seem as likely as anything else in +the present state of affairs—I’ll dine,’ said Mr. James Harthouse. +‘Bounderby has the advantage in point of weight; and if anything of a +British nature is to come off between us, it may be as well to be in +training.’ + +Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing himself negligently on a sofa, +ordered ‘Some dinner at six—with a beefsteak in it,’ and got through the +intervening time as well as he could. That was not particularly well; +for he remained in the greatest perplexity, and, as the hours went on, +and no kind of explanation offered itself, his perplexity augmented at +compound interest. + +However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature to do, and +entertained himself with the facetious idea of the training more than +once. ‘It wouldn’t be bad,’ he yawned at one time, ‘to give the waiter +five shillings, and throw him.’ At another time it occurred to him, ‘Or +a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone might be hired by the hour.’ +But these jests did not tell materially on the afternoon, or his +suspense; and, sooth to say, they both lagged fearfully. + +It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking about in +the pattern of the carpet, looking out of the window, listening at the +door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot when any steps +approached that room. But, after dinner, when the day turned to +twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and still no communication +was made to him, it began to be as he expressed it, ‘like the Holy Office +and slow torture.’ However, still true to his conviction that +indifference was the genuine high-breeding (the only conviction he had), +he seized this crisis as the opportunity for ordering candles and a +newspaper. + +He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this newspaper, +when the waiter appeared and said, at once mysteriously and +apologetically: + +‘Beg your pardon, sir. You’re wanted, sir, if you please.’ + +A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the Police said to +the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the waiter in return, with +bristling indignation, what the Devil he meant by ‘wanted’? + +‘Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, wishes to see you.’ + +‘Outside? Where?’ + +‘Outside this door, sir.’ + +Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a block-head duly +qualified for that consignment, Mr. Harthouse hurried into the gallery. +A young woman whom he had never seen stood there. Plainly dressed, very +quiet, very pretty. As he conducted her into the room and placed a chair +for her, he observed, by the light of the candles, that she was even +prettier than he had at first believed. Her face was innocent and +youthful, and its expression remarkably pleasant. She was not afraid of +him, or in any way disconcerted; she seemed to have her mind entirely +preoccupied with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted that +consideration for herself. + +‘I speak to Mr. Harthouse?’ she said, when they were alone. + +‘To Mr. Harthouse.’ He added in his mind, ‘And you speak to him with the +most confiding eyes I ever saw, and the most earnest voice (though so +quiet) I ever heard.’ + +‘If I do not understand—and I do not, sir’—said Sissy, ‘what your honour +as a gentleman binds you to, in other matters:’ the blood really rose in +his face as she began in these words: ‘I am sure I may rely upon it to +keep my visit secret, and to keep secret what I am going to say. I will +rely upon it, if you will tell me I may so far trust—’ + +‘You may, I assure you.’ + +‘I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see. In coming to you, sir, +I have no advice or encouragement beyond my own hope.’ He thought, ‘But +that is very strong,’ as he followed the momentary upward glance of her +eyes. He thought besides, ‘This is a very odd beginning. I don’t see +where we are going.’ + +‘I think,’ said Sissy, ‘you have already guessed whom I left just now!’ + +‘I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness during the last +four-and-twenty hours (which have appeared as many years),’ he returned, +‘on a lady’s account. The hopes I have been encouraged to form that you +come from that lady, do not deceive me, I trust.’ + +‘I left her within an hour.’ + +‘At—!’ + +‘At her father’s.’ + +Mr. Harthouse’s face lengthened in spite of his coolness, and his +perplexity increased. ‘Then I certainly,’ he thought, ‘do _not_ see +where we are going.’ + +‘She hurried there last night. She arrived there in great agitation, and +was insensible all through the night. I live at her father’s, and was +with her. You may be sure, sir, you will never see her again as long as +you live.’ + +Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath; and, if ever man found himself in the +position of not knowing what to say, made the discovery beyond all +question that he was so circumstanced. The child-like ingenuousness with +which his visitor spoke, her modest fearlessness, her truthfulness which +put all artifice aside, her entire forgetfulness of herself in her +earnest quiet holding to the object with which she had come; all this, +together with her reliance on his easily given promise—which in itself +shamed him—presented something in which he was so inexperienced, and +against which he knew any of his usual weapons would fall so powerless; +that not a word could he rally to his relief. + +At last he said: + +‘So startling an announcement, so confidently made, and by such lips, is +really disconcerting in the last degree. May I be permitted to inquire, +if you are charged to convey that information to me in those hopeless +words, by the lady of whom we speak?’ + +‘I have no charge from her.’ + +‘The drowning man catches at the straw. With no disrespect for your +judgment, and with no doubt of your sincerity, excuse my saying that I +cling to the belief that there is yet hope that I am not condemned to +perpetual exile from that lady’s presence.’ + +‘There is not the least hope. The first object of my coming here, sir, +is to assure you that you must believe that there is no more hope of your +ever speaking with her again, than there would be if she had died when +she came home last night.’ + +‘Must believe? But if I can’t—or if I should, by infirmity of nature, be +obstinate—and won’t—’ + +‘It is still true. There is no hope.’ + +James Harthouse looked at her with an incredulous smile upon his lips; +but her mind looked over and beyond him, and the smile was quite thrown +away. + +He bit his lip, and took a little time for consideration. + +‘Well! If it should unhappily appear,’ he said, ‘after due pains and +duty on my part, that I am brought to a position so desolate as this +banishment, I shall not become the lady’s persecutor. But you said you +had no commission from her?’ + +‘I have only the commission of my love for her, and her love for me. I +have no other trust, than that I have been with her since she came home, +and that she has given me her confidence. I have no further trust, than +that I know something of her character and her marriage. O Mr. +Harthouse, I think you had that trust too!’ + +He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been—in that +nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived if they +had not been whistled away—by the fervour of this reproach. + +‘I am not a moral sort of fellow,’ he said, ‘and I never make any +pretensions to the character of a moral sort of fellow. I am as immoral +as need be. At the same time, in bringing any distress upon the lady who +is the subject of the present conversation, or in unfortunately +compromising her in any way, or in committing myself by any expression of +sentiments towards her, not perfectly reconcilable with—in fact with—the +domestic hearth; or in taking any advantage of her father’s being a +machine, or of her brother’s being a whelp, or of her husband’s being a +bear; I beg to be allowed to assure you that I have had no particularly +evil intentions, but have glided on from one step to another with a +smoothness so perfectly diabolical, that I had not the slightest idea the +catalogue was half so long until I began to turn it over. Whereas I +find,’ said Mr. James Harthouse, in conclusion, ‘that it is really in +several volumes.’ + +Though he said all this in his frivolous way, the way seemed, for that +once, a conscious polishing of but an ugly surface. He was silent for a +moment; and then proceeded with a more self-possessed air, though with +traces of vexation and disappointment that would not be polished out. + +‘After what has been just now represented to me, in a manner I find it +impossible to doubt—I know of hardly any other source from which I could +have accepted it so readily—I feel bound to say to you, in whom the +confidence you have mentioned has been reposed, that I cannot refuse to +contemplate the possibility (however unexpected) of my seeing the lady no +more. I am solely to blame for the thing having come to this—and—and, I +cannot say,’ he added, rather hard up for a general peroration, ‘that I +have any sanguine expectation of ever becoming a moral sort of fellow, or +that I have any belief in any moral sort of fellow whatever.’ + +Sissy’s face sufficiently showed that her appeal to him was not finished. + +‘You spoke,’ he resumed, as she raised her eyes to him again, ‘of your +first object. I may assume that there is a second to be mentioned?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Will you oblige me by confiding it?’ + +‘Mr. Harthouse,’ returned Sissy, with a blending of gentleness and +steadiness that quite defeated him, and with a simple confidence in his +being bound to do what she required, that held him at a singular +disadvantage, ‘the only reparation that remains with you, is to leave +here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you can mitigate in +no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure that it +is the only compensation you have left it in your power to make. I do +not say that it is much, or that it is enough; but it is something, and +it is necessary. Therefore, though without any other authority than I +have given you, and even without the knowledge of any other person than +yourself and myself, I ask you to depart from this place to-night, under +an obligation never to return to it.’ + +If she had asserted any influence over him beyond her plain faith in the +truth and right of what she said; if she had concealed the least doubt or +irresolution, or had harboured for the best purpose any reserve or +pretence; if she had shown, or felt, the lightest trace of any +sensitiveness to his ridicule or his astonishment, or any remonstrance he +might offer; he would have carried it against her at this point. But he +could as easily have changed a clear sky by looking at it in surprise, as +affect her. + +‘But do you know,’ he asked, quite at a loss, ‘the extent of what you +ask? You probably are not aware that I am here on a public kind of +business, preposterous enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, +and sworn by, and am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate +manner? You probably are not aware of that, but I assure you it’s the +fact.’ + +It had no effect on Sissy, fact or no fact. + +‘Besides which,’ said Mr. Harthouse, taking a turn or two across the +room, dubiously, ‘it’s so alarmingly absurd. It would make a man so +ridiculous, after going in for these fellows, to back out in such an +incomprehensible way.’ + +‘I am quite sure,’ repeated Sissy, ‘that it is the only reparation in +your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I would not have come here.’ + +He glanced at her face, and walked about again. ‘Upon my soul, I don’t +know what to say. So immensely absurd!’ + +It fell to his lot, now, to stipulate for secrecy. + +‘If I were to do such a very ridiculous thing,’ he said, stopping again +presently, and leaning against the chimney-piece, ‘it could only be in +the most inviolable confidence.’ + +‘I will trust to you, sir,’ returned Sissy, ‘and you will trust to me.’ + +His leaning against the chimney-piece reminded him of the night with the +whelp. It was the self-same chimney-piece, and somehow he felt as if +_he_ were the whelp to-night. He could make no way at all. + +‘I suppose a man never was placed in a more ridiculous position,’ he +said, after looking down, and looking up, and laughing, and frowning, and +walking off, and walking back again. ‘But I see no way out of it. What +will be, will be. _This_ will be, I suppose. I must take off myself, I +imagine—in short, I engage to do it.’ + +Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the result, but she was happy in +it, and her face beamed brightly. + +‘You will permit me to say,’ continued Mr. James Harthouse, ‘that I doubt +if any other ambassador, or ambassadress, could have addressed me with +the same success. I must not only regard myself as being in a very +ridiculous position, but as being vanquished at all points. Will you +allow me the privilege of remembering my enemy’s name?’ + +‘_My_ name?’ said the ambassadress. + +‘The only name I could possibly care to know, to-night.’ + +‘Sissy Jupe.’ + +‘Pardon my curiosity at parting. Related to the family?’ + +‘I am only a poor girl,’ returned Sissy. ‘I was separated from my +father—he was only a stroller—and taken pity on by Mr. Gradgrind. I have +lived in the house ever since.’ + +She was gone. + +‘It wanted this to complete the defeat,’ said Mr. James Harthouse, +sinking, with a resigned air, on the sofa, after standing transfixed a +little while. ‘The defeat may now be considered perfectly accomplished. +Only a poor girl—only a stroller—only James Harthouse made nothing +of—only James Harthouse a Great Pyramid of failure.’ + +The Great Pyramid put it into his head to go up the Nile. He took a pen +upon the instant, and wrote the following note (in appropriate +hieroglyphics) to his brother: + + Dear Jack,—All up at Coketown. Bored out of the place, and going in + for camels. + + Affectionately, + JEM. + +He rang the bell. + +‘Send my fellow here.’ + +‘Gone to bed, sir.’ + +‘Tell him to get up, and pack up.’ + +He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. Bounderby, announcing his +retirement from that part of the country, and showing where he would be +found for the next fortnight. The other, similar in effect, to Mr. +Gradgrind. Almost as soon as the ink was dry upon their superscriptions, +he had left the tall chimneys of Coketown behind, and was in a railway +carriage, tearing and glaring over the dark landscape. + +The moral sort of fellows might suppose that Mr. James Harthouse derived +some comfortable reflections afterwards, from this prompt retreat, as one +of his few actions that made any amends for anything, and as a token to +himself that he had escaped the climax of a very bad business. But it +was not so, at all. A secret sense of having failed and been +ridiculous—a dread of what other fellows who went in for similar sorts of +things, would say at his expense if they knew it—so oppressed him, that +what was about the very best passage in his life was the one of all +others he would not have owned to on any account, and the only one that +made him ashamed of himself. + + + + +CHAPTER III +VERY DECIDED + + +THE indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her, her voice +reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by continual +sneezes that it seemed in danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her +patron until she found him in the metropolis; and there, majestically +sweeping in upon him at his hotel in St. James’s Street, exploded the +combustibles with which she was charged, and blew up. Having executed +her mission with infinite relish, this high-minded woman then fainted +away on Mr. Bounderby’s coat-collar. + +Mr. Bounderby’s first procedure was to shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and leave +her to progress as she might through various stages of suffering on the +floor. He next had recourse to the administration of potent +restoratives, such as screwing the patient’s thumbs, smiting her hands, +abundantly watering her face, and inserting salt in her mouth. When +these attentions had recovered her (which they speedily did), he hustled +her into a fast train without offering any other refreshment, and carried +her back to Coketown more dead than alive. + +Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting spectacle +on her arrival at her journey’s end; but considered in any other light, +the amount of damage she had by that time sustained was excessive, and +impaired her claims to admiration. Utterly heedless of the wear and tear +of her clothes and constitution, and adamant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. +Bounderby immediately crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to Stone +Lodge. + +‘Now, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, bursting into his father-in-law’s +room late at night; ‘here’s a lady here—Mrs. Sparsit—you know Mrs. +Sparsit—who has something to say to you that will strike you dumb.’ + +‘You have missed my letter!’ exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by the +apparition. + +‘Missed your letter, sir!’ bawled Bounderby. ‘The present time is no +time for letters. No man shall talk to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown +about letters, with his mind in the state it’s in now.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of temperate remonstrance, ‘I +speak of a very special letter I have written to you, in reference to +Louisa.’ + +‘Tom Gradgrind,’ replied Bounderby, knocking the flat of his hand several +times with great vehemence on the table, ‘I speak of a very special +messenger that has come to me, in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit, +ma’am, stand forward!’ + +That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, without any +voice and with painful gestures expressive of an inflamed throat, became +so aggravating and underwent so many facial contortions, that Mr. +Bounderby, unable to bear it, seized her by the arm and shook her. + +‘If you can’t get it out, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘leave _me_ to get it +out. This is not a time for a lady, however highly connected, to be +totally inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. +Sparsit latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation to overhear a +conversation out of doors between your daughter and your precious +gentleman-friend, Mr. James Harthouse.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Ah! Indeed!’ cried Bounderby. ‘And in that conversation—’ + +‘It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, Bounderby. I know what +passed.’ + +‘You do? Perhaps,’ said Bounderby, staring with all his might at his so +quiet and assuasive father-in-law, ‘you know where your daughter is at +the present time!’ + +‘Undoubtedly. She is here.’ + +‘Here?’ + +‘My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these loud out-breaks, on +all accounts. Louisa is here. The moment she could detach herself from +that interview with the person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply +regret to have been the means of introducing to you, Louisa hurried here, +for protection. I myself had not been at home many hours, when I +received her—here, in this room. She hurried by the train to town, she +ran from town to this house, through a raging storm, and presented +herself before me in a state of distraction. Of course, she has remained +here ever since. Let me entreat you, for your own sake and for hers, to +be more quiet.’ + +Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in every +direction except Mrs. Sparsit’s direction; and then, abruptly turning +upon the niece of Lady Scadgers, said to that wretched woman: + +‘Now, ma’am! We shall be happy to hear any little apology you may think +proper to offer, for going about the country at express pace, with no +other luggage than a Cock-and-a-Bull, ma’am!’ + +‘Sir,’ whispered Mrs. Sparsit, ‘my nerves are at present too much shaken, +and my health is at present too much impaired, in your service, to admit +of my doing more than taking refuge in tears.’ (Which she did.) + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘without making any observation to you +that may not be made with propriety to a woman of good family, what I +have got to add to that, is that there is something else in which it +appears to me you may take refuge, namely, a coach. And the coach in +which we came here being at the door, you’ll allow me to hand you down to +it, and pack you home to the Bank: where the best course for you to +pursue, will be to put your feet into the hottest water you can bear, and +take a glass of scalding rum and butter after you get into bed.’ With +these words, Mr. Bounderby extended his right hand to the weeping lady, +and escorted her to the conveyance in question, shedding many plaintive +sneezes by the way. He soon returned alone. + +‘Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted to +speak to me,’ he resumed, ‘here I am. But, I am not in a very agreeable +state, I tell you plainly: not relishing this business, even as it is, +and not considering that I am at any time as dutifully and submissively +treated by your daughter, as Josiah Bounderby of Coketown ought to be +treated by his wife. You have your opinion, I dare say; and I have mine, +I know. If you mean to say anything to me to-night, that goes against +this candid remark, you had better let it alone.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. Bounderby +took particular pains to harden himself at all points. It was his +amiable nature. + +‘My dear Bounderby,’ Mr. Gradgrind began in reply. + +‘Now, you’ll excuse me,’ said Bounderby, ‘but I don’t want to be too +dear. That, to start with. When I begin to be dear to a man, I +generally find that his intention is to come over me. I am not speaking +to you politely; but, as you are aware, I am _not_ polite. If you like +politeness, you know where to get it. You have your gentleman-friends, +you know, and they’ll serve you with as much of the article as you want. +I don’t keep it myself.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we are all liable to mistakes—’ + +‘I thought you couldn’t make ’em,’ interrupted Bounderby. + +‘Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable to mistakes and I +should feel sensible of your delicacy, and grateful for it, if you would +spare me these references to Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our +conversation with your intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in +connecting him with mine.’ + +‘I never mentioned his name!’ said Bounderby. + +‘Well, well!’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive, +air. And he sat for a little while pondering. ‘Bounderby, I see reason +to doubt whether we have ever quite understood Louisa.’ + +‘Who do you mean by We?’ + +‘Let me say I, then,’ he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted +question; ‘I doubt whether I have understood Louisa. I doubt whether I +have been quite right in the manner of her education.’ + +‘There you hit it,’ returned Bounderby. ‘There I agree with you. You +have found it out at last, have you? Education! I’ll tell you what +education is—To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the +shortest allowance of everything except blows. That’s what _I_ call +education.’ + +‘I think your good sense will perceive,’ Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in +all humility, ‘that whatever the merits of such a system may be, it would +be difficult of general application to girls.’ + +‘I don’t see it at all, sir,’ returned the obstinate Bounderby. + +‘Well,’ sighed Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we will not enter into the question. I +assure you I have no desire to be controversial. I seek to repair what +is amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good +spirit, Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed.’ + +‘I don’t understand you, yet,’ said Bounderby, with determined obstinacy, +‘and therefore I won’t make any promises.’ + +‘In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,’ Mr. Gradgrind +proceeded, in the same depressed and propitiatory manner, ‘I appear to +myself to have become better informed as to Louisa’s character, than in +previous years. The enlightenment has been painfully forced upon me, and +the discovery is not mine. I think there are—Bounderby, you will be +surprised to hear me say this—I think there are qualities in Louisa, +which—which have been harshly neglected, and—and a little perverted. +And—and I would suggest to you, that—that if you would kindly meet me in +a timely endeavour to leave her to her better nature for a while—and to +encourage it to develop itself by tenderness and consideration—it—it +would be the better for the happiness of all of us. Louisa,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, shading his face with his hand, ‘has always been my favourite +child.’ + +The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an extent on +hearing these words, that he seemed to be, and probably was, on the brink +of a fit. With his very ears a bright purple shot with crimson, he pent +up his indignation, however, and said: + +‘You’d like to keep her here for a time?’ + +‘I—I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, that you should allow +Louisa to remain here on a visit, and be attended by Sissy (I mean of +course Cecilia Jupe), who understands her, and in whom she trusts.’ + +‘I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, standing up with +his hands in his pockets, ‘that you are of opinion that there’s what +people call some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and myself.’ + +‘I fear there is at present a general incompatibility between Louisa, +and—and—and almost all the relations in which I have placed her,’ was her +father’s sorrowful reply. + +‘Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby the flushed, +confronting him with his legs wide apart, his hands deeper in his +pockets, and his hair like a hayfield wherein his windy anger was +boisterous. ‘You have said your say; I am going to say mine. I am a +Coketown man. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. I know the bricks of +this town, and I know the works of this town, and I know the chimneys of +this town, and I know the smoke of this town, and I know the Hands of +this town. I know ’em all pretty well. They’re real. When a man tells +me anything about imaginative qualities, I always tell that man, whoever +he is, that I know what he means. He means turtle soup and venison, with +a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up with a coach and six. +That’s what your daughter wants. Since you are of opinion that she ought +to have what she wants, I recommend you to provide it for her. Because, +Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I hoped, after my entreaty, you would +have taken a different tone.’ + +‘Just wait a bit,’ retorted Bounderby; ‘you have said your say, I +believe. I heard you out; hear me out, if you please. Don’t make +yourself a spectacle of unfairness as well as inconsistency, because, +although I am sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present position, +I should be doubly sorry to see him brought so low as that. Now, there’s +an incompatibility of some sort or another, I am given to understand by +you, between your daughter and me. I’ll give _you_ to understand, in +reply to that, that there unquestionably is an incompatibility of the +first magnitude—to be summed up in this—that your daughter don’t properly +know her husband’s merits, and is not impressed with such a sense as +would become her, by George! of the honour of his alliance. That’s plain +speaking, I hope.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘this is unreasonable.’ + +‘Is it?’ said Bounderby. ‘I am glad to hear you say so. Because when +Tom Gradgrind, with his new lights, tells me that what I say is +unreasonable, I am convinced at once it must be devilish sensible. With +your permission I am going on. You know my origin; and you know that for +a good many years of my life I didn’t want a shoeing-horn, in consequence +of not having a shoe. Yet you may believe or not, as you think proper, +that there are ladies—born ladies—belonging to families—Families!—who +next to worship the ground I walk on.’ + +He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law’s head. + +‘Whereas your daughter,’ proceeded Bounderby, ‘is far from being a born +lady. That you know, yourself. Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff +about such things, for you are very well aware I don’t; but that such is +the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can’t change it. Why do I say this?’ + +‘Not, I fear,’ observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, ‘to spare me.’ + +‘Hear me out,’ said Bounderby, ‘and refrain from cutting in till your +turn comes round. I say this, because highly connected females have been +astonished to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself, +and to witness her insensibility. They have wondered how I have suffered +it. And I wonder myself now, and I won’t suffer it.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, ‘the less we say to-night +the better, I think.’ + +‘On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the better, I +think. That is,’ the consideration checked him, ‘till I have said all I +mean to say, and then I don’t care how soon we stop. I come to a +question that may shorten the business. What do you mean by the proposal +you made just now?’ + +‘What do I mean, Bounderby?’ + +‘By your visiting proposition,’ said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk +of the hayfield. + +‘I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner, +for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may +tend to a gradual alteration for the better in many respects.’ + +‘To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?’ said +Bounderby. + +‘If you put it in those terms.’ + +‘What made you think of this?’ said Bounderby. + +‘I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood. Is it +asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid in +trying to set her right? You have accepted a great charge of her; for +better for worse, for—’ + +Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to +Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with an angry start. + +‘Come!’ said he, ‘I don’t want to be told about that. I know what I took +her for, as well as you do. Never you mind what I took her for; that’s +my look out.’ + +‘I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be more or +less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and that some yielding on your +part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may not only be an act of +true kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards Louisa.’ + +‘I think differently,’ blustered Bounderby. ‘I am going to finish this +business according to my own opinions. Now, I don’t want to make a +quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the truth, I don’t +think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a subject. +As to your gentleman-friend, he may take himself off, wherever he likes +best. If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my mind; if he don’t fall +in my way, I shan’t, for it won’t be worth my while to do it. As to your +daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and might have done better by +leaving Loo Gradgrind, if she don’t come home to-morrow, by twelve +o’clock at noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I +shall send her wearing apparel and so forth over here, and you’ll take +charge of her for the future. What I shall say to people in general, of +the incompatibility that led to my so laying down the law, will be this. +I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up; she’s the daughter of +Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing-up; and the two horses wouldn’t +pull together. I am pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man, I +believe; and most people will understand fast enough that it must be a +woman rather out of the common, also, who, in the long run, would come up +to my mark.’ + +‘Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby,’ urged Mr. +Gradgrind, ‘before you commit yourself to such a decision.’ + +‘I always come to a decision,’ said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: ‘and +whatever I do, I do at once. I should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind’s +addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he +knows of him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did, +after his making himself a party to sentimental humbug. I have given you +my decision, and I have got no more to say. Good night!’ + +So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed. At five minutes +past twelve o’clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby’s property to be +carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind’s; advertised his country +retreat for sale by private contract; and resumed a bachelor life. + + + + +CHAPTER IV +LOST + + +THE robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not cease to +occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of that +establishment now. In boastful proof of his promptitude and activity, as +a remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more +admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the mud instead of the sea, he +liked to show how little his domestic affairs abated his business ardour. +Consequently, in the first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even +advanced upon his usual display of bustle, and every day made such a rout +in renewing his investigations into the robbery, that the officers who +had it in hand almost wished it had never been committed. + +They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although they had been so +quiet since the first outbreak of the matter, that most people really did +suppose it to have been abandoned as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No +implicated man or woman took untimely courage, or made a self-betraying +step. More remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool could not be heard of, and +the mysterious old woman remained a mystery. + +Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs of stirring +beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s investigations was, that he +resolved to hazard a bold burst. He drew up a placard, offering Twenty +Pounds reward for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, suspected of +complicity in the robbery of Coketown Bank on such a night; he described +the said Stephen Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated height, and +manner, as minutely as he could; he recited how he had left the town, and +in what direction he had been last seen going; he had the whole printed +in great black letters on a staring broadsheet; and he caused the walls +to be posted with it in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon +the sight of the whole population at one blow. + +The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that morning to disperse +the groups of workers who stood in the tardy daybreak, collected round +the placards, devouring them with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the +eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not read. These people, +as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud—there was always +some such ready to help them—stared at the characters which meant so much +with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any +aspect of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and +full of evil. Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the matter +of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling +wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the Hands cleared out again into +the streets, there were still as many readers as before. + +Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that night; +and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the printer, and had +brought it in his pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the +down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow-brothers and +fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellow-men, what a to-do was +there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called ‘that damning document,’ +and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man +community! ‘Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of +those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and +of Union, is appropriately capable! Oh, my prostrate friends, with the +galling yoke of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism +treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which +right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your bellies +all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the garden—oh, my +brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you say, +_now_, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and +about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this degrading and +disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this +abominable advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you +crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like +race that happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, my compatriots, +happily cast him out and sent him forth! For you remember how he stood +here before you on this platform; you remember how, face to face and foot +to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember +how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with +not an inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst +us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the +avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar! And +now, my friends—my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that +stigma—my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose +scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my +friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, +with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his +native deformity, a What? A thief! A plunderer! A proscribed fugitive, +with a price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble character +of the Coketown operative! Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred +bond, to which your children and your children’s children yet unborn have +set their infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the part of the +United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous +for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool, +weaver, referred to in this placard, having been already solemnly +disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the +shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his +dishonest actions!’ + +Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort. A few +stern voices called out ‘No!’ and a score or two hailed, with assenting +cries of ‘Hear, hear!’ the caution from one man, ‘Slackbridge, y’or over +hetter in’t; y’or a goen too fast!’ But these were pigmies against an +army; the general assemblage subscribed to the gospel according to +Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively +panting at them. + +These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their +homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some minutes +before, returned. + +‘Who is it?’ asked Louisa. + +‘It is Mr. Bounderby,’ said Sissy, timid of the name, ‘and your brother +Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says her name is Rachael, and that you +know her.’ + +‘What do they want, Sissy dear?’ + +‘They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, and seems angry.’ + +‘Father,’ said Louisa, for he was present, ‘I cannot refuse to see them, +for a reason that will explain itself. Shall they come in here?’ + +As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring them. She +reappeared with them directly. Tom was last; and remained standing in +the obscurest part of the room, near the door. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said her husband, entering with a cool nod, ‘I don’t +disturb you, I hope. This is an unseasonable hour, but here is a young +woman who has been making statements which render my visit necessary. +Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for some obstinate reason +or other to say anything at all about those statements, good or bad, I am +obliged to confront her with your daughter.’ + +‘You have seen me once before, young lady,’ said Rachael, standing in +front of Louisa. + +Tom coughed. + +‘You have seen me, young lady,’ repeated Rachael, as she did not answer, +‘once before.’ + +Tom coughed again. + +‘I have.’ + +Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, ‘Will you +make it known, young lady, where, and who was there?’ + +‘I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on the night of his +discharge from his work, and I saw you there. He was there too; and an +old woman who did not speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a +dark corner. My brother was with me.’ + +‘Why couldn’t you say so, young Tom?’ demanded Bounderby. + +‘I promised my sister I wouldn’t.’ Which Louisa hastily confirmed. ‘And +besides,’ said the whelp bitterly, ‘she tells her own story so precious +well—and so full—that what business had I to take it out of her mouth!’ + +‘Say, young lady, if you please,’ pursued Rachael, ‘why, in an evil hour, +you ever came to Stephen’s that night.’ + +‘I felt compassion for him,’ said Louisa, her colour deepening, ‘and I +wished to know what he was going to do, and wished to offer him +assistance.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bounderby. ‘Much flattered and obliged.’ + +‘Did you offer him,’ asked Rachael, ‘a bank-note?’ + +‘Yes; but he refused it, and would only take two pounds in gold.’ + +Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again. + +‘Oh, certainly!’ said Bounderby. ‘If you put the question whether your +ridiculous and improbable account was true or not, I am bound to say it’s +confirmed.’ + +‘Young lady,’ said Rachael, ‘Stephen Blackpool is now named as a thief in +public print all over this town, and where else! There have been a +meeting to-night where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way. +Stephen! The honestest lad, the truest lad, the best!’ Her indignation +failed her, and she broke off sobbing. + +‘I am very, very sorry,’ said Louisa. + +‘Oh, young lady, young lady,’ returned Rachael, ‘I hope you may be, but I +don’t know! I can’t say what you may ha’ done! The like of you don’t +know us, don’t care for us, don’t belong to us. I am not sure why you +may ha’ come that night. I can’t tell but what you may ha’ come wi’ some +aim of your own, not mindin to what trouble you brought such as the poor +lad. I said then, Bless you for coming; and I said it of my heart, you +seemed to take so pitifully to him; but I don’t know now, I don’t know!’ + +Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so +faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted. + +‘And when I think,’ said Rachael through her sobs, ‘that the poor lad was +so grateful, thinkin you so good to him—when I mind that he put his hand +over his hard-worken face to hide the tears that you brought up there—Oh, +I hope you may be sorry, and ha’ no bad cause to be it; but I don’t know, +I don’t know!’ + +‘You’re a pretty article,’ growled the whelp, moving uneasily in his dark +corner, ‘to come here with these precious imputations! You ought to be +bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would be by +rights.’ + +She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only sound that +was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke. + +‘Come!’ said he, ‘you know what you have engaged to do. You had better +give your mind to that; not this.’ + +‘’Deed, I am loath,’ returned Rachael, drying her eyes, ‘that any here +should see me like this; but I won’t be seen so again. Young lady, when +I had read what’s put in print of Stephen—and what has just as much truth +in it as if it had been put in print of you—I went straight to the Bank +to say I knew where Stephen was, and to give a sure and certain promise +that he should be here in two days. I couldn’t meet wi’ Mr. Bounderby +then, and your brother sent me away, and I tried to find you, but you was +not to be found, and I went back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill +to-night, I hastened to hear what was said of Stephen—for I know wi’ +pride he will come back to shame it!—and then I went again to seek Mr. +Bounderby, and I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and he +believed no word I said, and brought me here.’ + +‘So far, that’s true enough,’ assented Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in +his pockets and his hat on. ‘But I have known you people before to-day, +you’ll observe, and I know you never die for want of talking. Now, I +recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, as doing. You have +undertaken to do something; all I remark upon that at present is, do it!’ + +‘I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this afternoon, as I +have written to him once before sin’ he went away,’ said Rachael; ‘and he +will be here, at furthest, in two days.’ + +‘Then, I’ll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps,’ retorted Mr. +Bounderby, ‘that you yourself have been looked after now and then, not +being considered quite free from suspicion in this business, on account +of most people being judged according to the company they keep. The +post-office hasn’t been forgotten either. What I’ll tell you is, that no +letter to Stephen Blackpool has ever got into it. Therefore, what has +become of yours, I leave you to guess. Perhaps you’re mistaken, and +never wrote any.’ + +‘He hadn’t been gone from here, young lady,’ said Rachael, turning +appealingly to Louisa, ‘as much as a week, when he sent me the only +letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work in +another name.’ + +‘Oh, by George!’ cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle, ‘he +changes his name, does he! That’s rather unlucky, too, for such an +immaculate chap. It’s considered a little suspicious in Courts of +Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many names.’ + +‘What,’ said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, ‘what, young +lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do! The masters +against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin +to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Can a man have no soul +of his own, no mind of his own? Must he go wrong all through wi’ this +side, or must he go wrong all through wi’ that, or else be hunted like a +hare?’ + +‘Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,’ returned Louisa; ‘and I hope +that he will clear himself.’ + +‘You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!’ + +‘All the surer, I suppose,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘for your refusing to +tell where he is? Eh?’ + +‘He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi’ the unmerited +reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own accord to +clear himself, and put all those that have injured his good character, +and he not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been +done against him,’ said Rachael, throwing off all distrust as a rock +throws off the sea, ‘and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.’ + +‘Notwithstanding which,’ added Mr. Bounderby, ‘if he can be laid hold of +any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of clearing himself. As +to you, I have nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out +to be true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, and +there’s an end of it. I wish you good night all! I must be off to look +a little further into this.’ + +Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept +close to him, and went away with him. The only parting salutation of +which he delivered himself was a sulky ‘Good night, father!’ With a +brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left the house. + +Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been sparing of +speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said: + +‘Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me better.’ + +‘It goes against me,’ Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, ‘to mistrust +any one; but when I am so mistrusted—when we all are—I cannot keep such +things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you an +injury. I don’t think what I said now. Yet I might come to think it +again, wi’ the poor lad so wronged.’ + +‘Did you tell him in your letter,’ inquired Sissy, ‘that suspicion seemed +to have fallen upon him, because he had been seen about the Bank at +night? He would then know what he would have to explain on coming back, +and would be ready.’ + +‘Yes, dear,’ she returned; ‘but I can’t guess what can have ever taken +him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his way. His way +was the same as mine, and not near it.’ + +Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and +whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there were news of +him. + +‘I doubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if he can be here till next day.’ + +‘Then I will come next night too,’ said Sissy. + +When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his +head, and said to his daughter: + +‘Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you +believe him to be implicated?’ + +‘I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. I do +not believe it now.’ + +‘That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing +him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they so honest?’ + +‘Very honest.’ + +‘And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +musing, ‘does the real culprit know of these accusations? Where is he? +Who is he?’ + +His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his +hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, +hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by +accident met Sissy’s at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and +Louisa put her finger on her lip. + +Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not +come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home +with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke +in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of +looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor +ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it. + +The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and +Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the fourth +day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her despatch to +have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter from him with +his address, at a working colony, one of many, not upon the main road, +sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole town +looked for Stephen to be brought in next day. + +During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his +shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly excited, +horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard +rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour +when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station; +offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who +were sent in quest of him, and that he would not appear. + +The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael’s letter +had gone, Rachael’s letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had +decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only doubt +in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing +that he really would come back, or warning him to fly. On this point +opinion was divided. + +Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp +plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant. ‘_Was_ the +suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the +man, and why did he not come back?’ + +Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of night +the echoes of his own words, which had rolled Heaven knows how far away +in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him until morning. + + + + +CHAPTER V +FOUND + + +DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where +was the man, and why did he not come back? + +Every night, Sissy went to Rachael’s lodging, and sat with her in her +small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must toil, +whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were indifferent who was +lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, +like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of their set routine, whatever +happened. Day and night again, day and night again. The monotony was +unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool’s disappearance was falling into the +general way, and becoming as monotonous a wonder as any piece of +machinery in Coketown. + +‘I misdoubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if there is as many as twenty left in all +this place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.’ + +She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by the +lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was already +dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat at the window +where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter light to shine on their +sorrowful talk. + +‘If it hadn’t been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you to +speak to,’ pursued Rachael, ‘times are, when I think my mind would not +have kept right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you +believe that though appearances may rise against him, he will be proved +clear?’ + +‘I do believe so,’ returned Sissy, ‘with my whole heart. I feel so +certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all +discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him +than if I had known him through as many years of trial as you have.’ + +‘And I, my dear,’ said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, ‘have known +him through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so faithful to +everything honest and good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and +I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, +God knows my heart. I have never once left trusting Stephen Blackpool!’ + +‘We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed from +suspicion, sooner or later.’ + +‘The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,’ said Rachael, +‘and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there, purposely to +comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi’ me when I am not yet +free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever +have spoken those mistrusting words to the young lady. And yet I—’ + +‘You don’t mistrust her now, Rachael?’ + +‘Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can’t at all +times keep out of my mind—’ + +Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that Sissy, +sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention. + +‘I can’t at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some one. I +can’t think who ’tis, I can’t think how or why it may be done, but I +mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way. I mistrust that +by his coming back of his own accord, and showing himself innocent before +them all, some one would be confounded, who—to prevent that—has stopped +him, and put him out of the way.’ + +‘That is a dreadful thought,’ said Sissy, turning pale. + +‘It _is_ a dreadful thought to think he may be murdered.’ + +Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet. + +‘When it makes its way into my mind, dear,’ said Rachael, ‘and it will +come sometimes, though I do all I can to keep it out, wi’ counting on to +high numbers as I work, and saying over and over again pieces that I knew +when I were a child—I fall into such a wild, hot hurry, that, however +tired I am, I want to walk fast, miles and miles. I must get the better +of this before bed-time. I’ll walk home wi’ you.’ + +‘He might fall ill upon the journey back,’ said Sissy, faintly offering a +worn-out scrap of hope; ‘and in such a case, there are many places on the +road where he might stop.’ + +‘But he is in none of them. He has been sought for in all, and he’s not +there.’ + +‘True,’ was Sissy’s reluctant admission. + +‘He’d walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and couldn’t +walk, I sent him, in the letter he got, the money to ride, lest he should +have none of his own to spare.’ + +‘Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, Rachael. Come +into the air!’ + +Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael’s shawl upon her shining black hair in +the usual manner of her wearing it, and they went out. The night being +fine, little knots of Hands were here and there lingering at street +corners; but it was supper-time with the greater part of them, and there +were but few people in the streets. + +‘You’re not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand is cooler.’ + +‘I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little fresh. +‘Times when I can’t, I turn weak and confused.’ + +‘But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at any +time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no news comes +to-morrow, let us walk in the country on Sunday morning, and strengthen +you for another week. Will you go?’ + +‘Yes, dear.’ + +They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby’s house stood. +The way to Sissy’s destination led them past the door, and they were +going straight towards it. Some train had newly arrived in Coketown, +which had put a number of vehicles in motion, and scattered a +considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches were rattling before +them and behind them as they approached Mr. Bounderby’s, and one of the +latter drew up with such briskness as they were in the act of passing the +house, that they looked round involuntarily. The bright gaslight over +Mr. Bounderby’s steps showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an +ecstasy of excitement, struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing +them at the same moment, called to them to stop. + +‘It’s a coincidence,’ exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released by the +coachman. ‘It’s a Providence! Come out, ma’am!’ then said Mrs. Sparsit, +to some one inside, ‘come out, or we’ll have you dragged out!’ + +Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom Mrs. +Sparsit incontinently collared. + +‘Leave her alone, everybody!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great energy. +‘Let nobody touch her. She belongs to me. Come in, ma’am!’ then said +Mrs. Sparsit, reversing her former word of command. ‘Come in, ma’am, or +we’ll have you dragged in!’ + +The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an ancient +woman by the throat, and hauling her into a dwelling-house, would have +been under any circumstances, sufficient temptation to all true English +stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a way into that +dwelling-house and see the matter out. But when the phenomenon was +enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time associated all over +the town with the Bank robbery, it would have lured the stragglers in, +with an irresistible attraction, though the roof had been expected to +fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the chance witnesses on the ground, +consisting of the busiest of the neighbours to the number of some +five-and-twenty, closed in after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in +after Mrs. Sparsit and her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly +irruption into Mr. Bounderby’s dining-room, where the people behind lost +not a moment’s time in mounting on the chairs, to get the better of the +people in front. + +‘Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Rachael, young woman; +you know who this is?’ + +‘It’s Mrs. Pegler,’ said Rachael. + +‘I should think it is!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. ‘Fetch Mr. +Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!’ Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling +herself up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of entreaty. +‘Don’t tell me,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud. ‘I have told you twenty +times, coming along, that I will _not_ leave you till I have handed you +over to him myself.’ + +Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the whelp, +with whom he had been holding conference up-stairs. Mr. Bounderby looked +more astonished than hospitable, at sight of this uninvited party in his +dining-room. + +‘Why, what’s the matter now!’ said he. ‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?’ + +‘Sir,’ explained that worthy woman, ‘I trust it is my good fortune to +produce a person you have much desired to find. Stimulated by my wish to +relieve your mind, sir, and connecting together such imperfect clues to +the part of the country in which that person might be supposed to reside, +as have been afforded by the young woman, Rachael, fortunately now +present to identify, I have had the happiness to succeed, and to bring +that person with me—I need not say most unwillingly on her part. It has +not been, sir, without some trouble that I have effected this; but +trouble in your service is to me a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold +a real gratification.’ + +Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby’s visage exhibited an +extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions of +discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view. + +‘Why, what do you mean by this?’ was his highly unexpected demand, in +great warmth. ‘I ask you, what do you mean by this, Mrs. Sparsit, +ma’am?’ + +‘Sir!’ exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly. + +‘Why don’t you mind your own business, ma’am?’ roared Bounderby. ‘How +dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family affairs?’ + +This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit. She sat +down stiffly in a chair, as if she were frozen; and with a fixed stare at +Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one another, as if they +were frozen too. + +‘My dear Josiah!’ cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. ‘My darling boy! I am +not to blame. It’s not my fault, Josiah. I told this lady over and over +again, that I knew she was doing what would not be agreeable to you, but +she would do it.’ + +‘What did you let her bring you for? Couldn’t you knock her cap off, or +her tooth out, or scratch her, or do something or other to her?’ asked +Bounderby. + +‘My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be +brought by constables, and it was better to come quietly than make that +stir in such a’—Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly round the +walls—‘such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it is not my fault! +My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always lived quiet, and secret, +Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the condition once. I have never +said I was your mother. I have admired you at a distance; and if I have +come to town sometimes, with long times between, to take a proud peep at +you, I have done it unbeknown, my love, and gone away again.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient +mortification up and down at the side of the long dining-table, while the +spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs. Pegler’s appeal, and +at each succeeding syllable became more and more round-eyed. Mr. +Bounderby still walking up and down when Mrs. Pegler had done, Mr. +Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady: + +‘I am surprised, madam,’ he observed with severity, ‘that in your old age +you have the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your son, after your +unnatural and inhuman treatment of him.’ + +‘_Me_ unnatural!’ cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. ‘_Me_ inhuman! To my dear +boy?’ + +‘Dear!’ repeated Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Yes; dear in his self-made prosperity, +madam, I dare say. Not very dear, however, when you deserted him in his +infancy, and left him to the brutality of a drunken grandmother.’ + +‘_I_ deserted my Josiah!’ cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands. ‘Now, +Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and for your scandal +against the memory of my poor mother, who died in my arms before Josiah +was born. May you repent of it, sir, and live to know better!’ + +She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by the +possibility which dawned upon him, said in a gentler tone: + +‘Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to—to be brought up in +the gutter?’ + +‘Josiah in the gutter!’ exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. ‘No such a thing, sir. +Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give _you_ to +know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of parents that +loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought it hardship on +themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and cipher beautiful, and +I’ve his books at home to show it! Aye, have I!’ said Mrs. Pegler, with +indignant pride. ‘And my dear boy knows, and will give _you_ to know, +sir, that after his beloved father died, when he was eight years old, his +mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and +her pride to do it, to help him out in life, and put him ’prentice. And +a steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and +well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving. And _I_’ll +give you to know, sir—for this my dear boy won’t—that though his mother +kept but a little village shop, he never forgot her, but pensioned me on +thirty pound a year—more than I want, for I put by out of it—only making +the condition that I was to keep down in my own part, and make no boasts +about him, and not trouble him. And I never have, except with looking at +him once a year, when he has never knowed it. And it’s right,’ said poor +old Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate championship, ‘that I _should_ keep down +in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do a +many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep my pride +in my Josiah to myself, and I can love for love’s own sake! And I am +ashamed of you, sir,’ said Mrs. Pegler, lastly, ‘for your slanders and +suspicions. And I never stood here before, nor never wanted to stand +here when my dear son said no. And I shouldn’t be here now, if it hadn’t +been for being brought here. And for shame upon you, Oh, for shame, to +accuse me of being a bad mother to my son, with my son standing here to +tell you so different!’ + +The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur of +sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself innocently +placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who had +never ceased walking up and down, and had every moment swelled larger and +larger, and grown redder and redder, stopped short. + +‘I don’t exactly know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘how I come to be favoured +with the attendance of the present company, but I don’t inquire. When +they’re quite satisfied, perhaps they’ll be so good as to disperse; +whether they’re satisfied or not, perhaps they’ll be so good as to +disperse. I’m not bound to deliver a lecture on my family affairs, I +have not undertaken to do it, and I’m not a going to do it. Therefore +those who expect any explanation whatever upon that branch of the +subject, will be disappointed—particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he can’t +know it too soon. In reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a +mistake made, concerning my mother. If there hadn’t been +over-officiousness it wouldn’t have been made, and I hate +over-officiousness at all times, whether or no. Good evening!’ + +Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the door +open for the company to depart, there was a blustering sheepishness upon +him, at once extremely crestfallen and superlatively absurd. Detected as +the Bully of humility, who had built his windy reputation upon lies, and +in his boastfulness had put the honest truth as far away from him as if +he had advanced the mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to +a pedigree, he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the people filing off +at the door he held, who he knew would carry what had passed to the whole +town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a Bully +more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even that +unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of exultation into +the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that remarkable man +and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. + +Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son’s for +that night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and there parted. +Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very far, and spoke with +much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he thought this signal +failure of the suspicions against Mrs. Pegler was likely to work well. + +As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late occasions, he +had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that as long as +Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge, he was so far +safe. He never visited his sister, and had only seen her once since she +went home: that is to say on the night when he still stuck close to +Bounderby, as already related. + +There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister’s mind, to +which she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless and +ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark possibility had +presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this very day, to Sissy, +when Rachael spoke of some one who would be confounded by Stephen’s +return, having put him out of the way. Louisa had never spoken of +harbouring any suspicion of her brother in connexion with the robbery, +she and Sissy had held no confidence on the subject, save in that one +interchange of looks when the unconscious father rested his gray head on +his hand; but it was understood between them, and they both knew it. +This other fear was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a +ghostly shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far +less of its being near the other. + +And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve with +him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, let him show himself. Why +didn’t he? + +Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was +the man, and why did he not come back? + + + + +CHAPTER VI +THE STARLIGHT + + +THE Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when early in +the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country. + +As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the +neighbourhood’s too—after the manner of those pious persons who do +penance for their own sins by putting other people into sackcloth—it was +customary for those who now and then thirsted for a draught of pure air, +which is not absolutely the most wicked among the vanities of life, to +get a few miles away by the railroad, and then begin their walk, or their +lounge in the fields. Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the +smoke by the usual means, and were put down at a station about midway +between the town and Mr. Bounderby’s retreat. + +Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of coal, +it was green elsewhere, and there were trees to see, and there were larks +singing (though it was Sunday), and there were pleasant scents in the +air, and all was over-arched by a bright blue sky. In the distance one +way, Coketown showed as a black mist; in another distance hills began to +rise; in a third, there was a faint change in the light of the horizon +where it shone upon the far-off sea. Under their feet, the grass was +fresh; beautiful shadows of branches flickered upon it, and speckled it; +hedgerows were luxuriant; everything was at peace. Engines at pits’ +mouths, and lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily +labour into the ground, were alike quiet; wheels had ceased for a short +space to turn; and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve without the +shocks and noises of another time. + +They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes, sometimes +getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it dropped at a touch +of the foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown +with grass, marking the site of deserted works. They followed paths and +tracks, however slight. Mounds where the grass was rank and high, and +where brambles, dock-weed, and such-like vegetation, were confusedly +heaped together, they always avoided; for dismal stories were told in +that country of the old pits hidden beneath such indications. + +The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They had seen no one, near +or distant, for a long time; and the solitude remained unbroken. ‘It is +so still here, Rachael, and the way is so untrodden, that I think we must +be the first who have been here all the summer.’ + +As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another of those rotten +fragments of fence upon the ground. She got up to look at it. ‘And yet +I don’t know. This has not been broken very long. The wood is quite +fresh where it gave way. Here are footsteps too.—O Rachael!’ + +She ran back, and caught her round the neck. Rachael had already started +up. + +‘What is the matter?’ + +‘I don’t know. There is a hat lying in the grass.’ They went forward +together. Rachael took it up, shaking from head to foot. She broke into +a passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen Blackpool was written in his +own hand on the inside. + +‘O the poor lad, the poor lad! He has been made away with. He is lying +murdered here!’ + +‘Is there—has the hat any blood upon it?’ Sissy faltered. + +They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found no mark of +violence, inside or out. It had been lying there some days, for rain and +dew had stained it, and the mark of its shape was on the grass where it +had fallen. They looked fearfully about them, without moving, but could +see nothing more. ‘Rachael,’ Sissy whispered, ‘I will go on a little by +myself.’ + +She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping forward, when +Rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that resounded over the +wide landscape. Before them, at their very feet, was the brink of a +black ragged chasm hidden by the thick grass. They sprang back, and fell +upon their knees, each hiding her face upon the other’s neck. + +‘O, my good Lord! He’s down there! Down there!’ At first this, and her +terrific screams, were all that could be got from Rachael, by any tears, +by any prayers, by any representations, by any means. It was impossible +to hush her; and it was deadly necessary to hold her, or she would have +flung herself down the shaft. + +‘Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of Heaven, not these +dreadful cries! Think of Stephen, think of Stephen, think of Stephen!’ + +By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all the agony of +such a moment, Sissy at last brought her to be silent, and to look at her +with a tearless face of stone. + +‘Rachael, Stephen may be living. You wouldn’t leave him lying maimed at +the bottom of this dreadful place, a moment, if you could bring help to +him?’ + +‘No, no, no!’ + +‘Don’t stir from here, for his sake! Let me go and listen.’ + +She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on her hands +and knees, and called to him as loud as she could call. She listened, +but no sound replied. She called again and listened; still no answering +sound. She did this, twenty, thirty times. She took a little clod of +earth from the broken ground where he had stumbled, and threw it in. She +could not hear it fall. + +The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes ago, +almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she rose and looked all +round her, seeing no help. ‘Rachael, we must lose not a moment. We must +go in different directions, seeking aid. You shall go by the way we have +come, and I will go forward by the path. Tell any one you see, and every +one what has happened. Think of Stephen, think of Stephen!’ + +She knew by Rachael’s face that she might trust her now. And after +standing for a moment to see her running, wringing her hands as she ran, +she turned and went upon her own search; she stopped at the hedge to tie +her shawl there as a guide to the place, then threw her bonnet aside, and +ran as she had never run before. + +Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven’s name! Don’t stop for breath. Run, run! +Quickening herself by carrying such entreaties in her thoughts, she ran +from field to field, and lane to lane, and place to place, as she had +never run before; until she came to a shed by an engine-house, where two +men lay in the shade, asleep on straw. + +First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and breathless as +she was, what had brought her there, were difficulties; but they no +sooner understood her than their spirits were on fire like hers. One of +the men was in a drunken slumber, but on his comrade’s shouting to him +that a man had fallen down the Old Hell Shaft, he started out to a pool +of dirty water, put his head in it, and came back sober. + +With these two men she ran to another half-a-mile further, and with that +one to another, while they ran elsewhere. Then a horse was found; and +she got another man to ride for life or death to the railroad, and send a +message to Louisa, which she wrote and gave him. By this time a whole +village was up: and windlasses, ropes, poles, candles, lanterns, all +things necessary, were fast collecting and being brought into one place, +to be carried to the Old Hell Shaft. + +It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying in +the grave where he had been buried alive. She could not bear to remain +away from it any longer—it was like deserting him—and she hurried swiftly +back, accompanied by half-a-dozen labourers, including the drunken man +whom the news had sobered, and who was the best man of all. When they +came to the Old Hell Shaft, they found it as lonely as she had left it. +The men called and listened as she had done, and examined the edge of the +chasm, and settled how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until +the implements they wanted should come up. + +Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves, every +whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought it was a cry +at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over it, and no sound +arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting. +After they had waited some time, straggling people who had heard of the +accident began to come up; then the real help of implements began to +arrive. In the midst of this, Rachael returned; and with her party there +was a surgeon, who brought some wine and medicines. But, the expectation +among the people that the man would be found alive was very slight +indeed. + +There being now people enough present to impede the work, the sobered man +put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there by the general +consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed +men to keep it. Besides such volunteers as were accepted to work, only +Sissy and Rachael were at first permitted within this ring; but, later in +the day, when the message brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind +and Louisa, and Mr. Bounderby, and the whelp, were also there. + +The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first sat +down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men to descend +securely was rigged with poles and ropes. Difficulties had arisen in the +construction of this machine, simple as it was; requisites had been found +wanting, and messages had had to go and return. It was five o’clock in +the afternoon of the bright autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent +down to try the air, while three or four rough faces stood crowded close +together, attentively watching it: the man at the windlass lowering as +they were told. The candle was brought up again, feebly burning, and +then some water was cast in. Then the bucket was hooked on; and the +sobered man and another got in with lights, giving the word ‘Lower away!’ + +As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, there +was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women looking on, +that came as it was wont to come. The signal was given and the windlass +stopped, with abundant rope to spare. Apparently so long an interval +ensued with the men at the windlass standing idle, that some women +shrieked that another accident had happened! But the surgeon who held +the watch, declared five minutes not to have elapsed yet, and sternly +admonished them to keep silence. He had not well done speaking, when the +windlass was reversed and worked again. Practised eyes knew that it did +not go as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming up, and +that only one was returning. + +The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon +the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The +sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There +was an universal cry of ‘Alive or dead?’ and then a deep, profound hush. + +When he said ‘Alive!’ a great shout arose and many eyes had tears in +them. + +‘But he’s hurt very bad,’ he added, as soon as he could make himself +heard again. ‘Where’s doctor? He’s hurt so very bad, sir, that we donno +how to get him up.’ + +They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon, as he +asked some questions, and shook his head on receiving the replies. The +sun was setting now; and the red light in the evening sky touched every +face there, and caused it to be distinctly seen in all its rapt suspense. + +The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and the +pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other small matters +with him. Then the other man came up. In the meantime, under the +surgeon’s directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which others made a +thick bed of spare clothes covered with loose straw, while he himself +contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs. As +these were made, they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last +come up, with instructions how to use them: and as he stood, shown by the +light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, +and sometimes glancing down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon +the people, he was not the least conspicuous figure in the scene. It was +dark now, and torches were kindled. + +It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, which was +quickly repeated all over the circle, that the lost man had fallen upon a +mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half choked up, and that +his fall had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side. He +lay upon his back with one arm doubled under him, and according to his +own belief had hardly stirred since he fell, except that he had moved his +free hand to a side pocket, in which he remembered to have some bread and +meat (of which he had swallowed crumbs), and had likewise scooped up a +little water in it now and then. He had come straight away from his +work, on being written to, and had walked the whole journey; and was on +his way to Mr. Bounderby’s country house after dark, when he fell. He +was crossing that dangerous country at such a dangerous time, because he +was innocent of what was laid to his charge, and couldn’t rest from +coming the nearest way to deliver himself up. The Old Hell Shaft, the +pitman said, with a curse upon it, was worthy of its bad name to the +last; for though Stephen could speak now, he believed it would soon be +found to have mangled the life out of him. + +When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hurried charges from +his comrades and the surgeon after the windlass had begun to lower him, +disappeared into the pit. The rope went out as before, the signal was +made as before, and the windlass stopped. No man removed his hand from +it now. Every one waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to +the work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal was given, +and all the ring leaned forward. + +For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as it +appeared, and the men turned heavily, and the windlass complained. It +was scarcely endurable to look at the rope, and think of its giving way. +But, ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, +and the connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket with the two +men holding on at the sides—a sight to make the head swim, and oppress +the heart—and tenderly supporting between them, slung and tied within, +the figure of a poor, crushed, human creature. + +A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept aloud, as +this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly from its iron +deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw. At first, none but the +surgeon went close to it. He did what he could in its adjustment on the +couch, but the best that he could do was to cover it. That gently done, +he called to him Rachael and Sissy. And at that time the pale, worn, +patient face was seen looking up at the sky, with the broken right hand +lying bare on the outside of the covering garments, as if waiting to be +taken by another hand. + +They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and administered some +drops of cordial and wine. Though he lay quite motionless looking up at +the sky, he smiled and said, ‘Rachael.’ She stooped down on the grass at +his side, and bent over him until her eyes were between his and the sky, +for he could not so much as turn them to look at her. + +‘Rachael, my dear.’ + +She took his hand. He smiled again and said, ‘Don’t let ’t go.’ + +‘Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear Stephen?’ + +‘I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ been—dreadful, and dree, and long, my +dear—but ’tis ower now. Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle! Fro’ first to last, a +muddle!’ + +The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word. + +‘I ha’ fell into th’ pit, my dear, as have cost wi’in the knowledge o’ +old fok now livin, hundreds and hundreds o’ men’s lives—fathers, sons, +brothers, dear to thousands an’ thousands, an’ keeping ’em fro’ want and +hunger. I ha’ fell into a pit that ha’ been wi’ th’ Firedamp crueller +than battle. I ha’ read on ’t in the public petition, as onny one may +read, fro’ the men that works in pits, in which they ha’ pray’n and +pray’n the lawmakers for Christ’s sake not to let their work be murder to +’em, but to spare ’em for th’ wives and children that they loves as well +as gentlefok loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi’out need; +when ’tis let alone, it kills wi’out need. See how we die an’ no need, +one way an’ another—in a muddle—every day!’ + +He faintly said it, without any anger against any one. Merely as the +truth. + +‘Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her. Thou’rt not like +to forget her now, and me so nigh her. Thou know’st—poor, patient, +suff’rin, dear—how thou didst work for her, seet’n all day long in her +little chair at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshapen, awlung +o’ sickly air as had’n no need to be, an’ awlung o’ working people’s +miserable homes. A muddle! Aw a muddle!’ + +Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with his face +turned up to the night sky. + +‘If aw th’ things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I +should’n ha’ had’n need to coom heer. If we was not in a muddle among +ourseln, I should’n ha’ been, by my own fellow weavers and workin’ +brothers, so mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know’d me right—if he’d +ever know’d me at aw—he would’n ha’ took’n offence wi’ me. He would’n +ha’ suspect’n me. But look up yonder, Rachael! Look aboove!’ + +Following his eyes, she saw that he was gazing at a star. + + [Picture: Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft] + +‘It ha’ shined upon me,’ he said reverently, ‘in my pain and trouble down +below. It ha’ shined into my mind. I ha’ look’n at ’t and thowt o’ +thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa, above a bit, +I hope. If soom ha’ been wantin’ in unnerstan’in me better, I, too, ha’ +been wantin’ in unnerstan’in them better. When I got thy letter, I +easily believen that what the yoong ledy sen and done to me, and what her +brother sen and done to me, was one, and that there were a wicked plot +betwixt ’em. When I fell, I were in anger wi’ her, an’ hurryin on t’ be +as onjust t’ her as oothers was t’ me. But in our judgments, like as in +our doins, we mun bear and forbear. In my pain an’ trouble, lookin up +yonder,—wi’ it shinin on me—I ha’ seen more clear, and ha’ made it my +dyin prayer that aw th’ world may on’y coom toogether more, an’ get a +better unnerstan’in o’ one another, than when I were in ’t my own weak +seln.’ + +Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the opposite side to +Rachael, so that he could see her. + +‘You ha’ heard?’ he said, after a few moments’ silence. ‘I ha’ not +forgot you, ledy.’ + +‘Yes, Stephen, I have heard you. And your prayer is mine.’ + +‘You ha’ a father. Will yo tak’ a message to him?’ + +‘He is here,’ said Louisa, with dread. ‘Shall I bring him to you?’ + +‘If yo please.’ + +Louisa returned with her father. Standing hand-in-hand, they both looked +down upon the solemn countenance. + +‘Sir, yo will clear me an’ mak my name good wi’ aw men. This I leave to +yo.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was troubled and asked how? + +‘Sir,’ was the reply: ‘yor son will tell yo how. Ask him. I mak no +charges: I leave none ahint me: not a single word. I ha’ seen an’ spok’n +wi’ yor son, one night. I ask no more o’ yo than that yo clear me—an’ I +trust to yo to do ’t.’ + +The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon being +anxious for his removal, those who had torches or lanterns, prepared to +go in front of the litter. Before it was raised, and while they were +arranging how to go, he said to Rachael, looking upward at the star: + +‘Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin’ on me down there in my +trouble, I thowt it were the star as guided to Our Saviour’s home. I +awmust think it be the very star!’ + +They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that they were about to +take him in the direction whither the star seemed to him to lead. + +‘Rachael, beloved lass! Don’t let go my hand. We may walk toogether +t’night, my dear!’ + +‘I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Stephen, all the way.’ + +‘Bless thee! Will soombody be pleased to coover my face!’ + +They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes, and +over the wide landscape; Rachael always holding the hand in hers. Very +few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral +procession. The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; +and through humility, and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his +Redeemer’s rest. + + + + +CHAPTER VII +WHELP-HUNTING + + +BEFORE the ring formed round the Old Hell Shaft was broken, one figure +had disappeared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not +stood near Louisa, who held her father’s arm, but in a retired place by +themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to the couch, Sissy, +attentive to all that happened, slipped behind that wicked shadow—a sight +in the horror of his face, if there had been eyes there for any sight but +one—and whispered in his ear. Without turning his head, he conferred +with her a few moments, and vanished. Thus the whelp had gone out of the +circle before the people moved. + +When the father reached home, he sent a message to Mr. Bounderby’s, +desiring his son to come to him directly. The reply was, that Mr. +Bounderby having missed him in the crowd, and seeing nothing of him +since, had supposed him to be at Stone Lodge. + +‘I believe, father,’ said Louisa, ‘he will not come back to town +to-night.’ Mr. Gradgrind turned away, and said no more. + +In the morning, he went down to the Bank himself as soon as it was +opened, and seeing his son’s place empty (he had not the courage to look +in at first) went back along the street to meet Mr. Bounderby on his way +there. To whom he said that, for reasons he would soon explain, but +entreated not then to be asked for, he had found it necessary to employ +his son at a distance for a little while. Also, that he was charged with +the duty of vindicating Stephen Blackpool’s memory, and declaring the +thief. Mr. Bounderby quite confounded, stood stock-still in the street +after his father-in-law had left him, swelling like an immense +soap-bubble, without its beauty. + +Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, and kept it all that +day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped at his door, he said, without opening +it, ‘Not now, my dears; in the evening.’ On their return in the evening, +he said, ‘I am not able yet—to-morrow.’ He ate nothing all day, and had +no candle after dark; and they heard him walking to and fro late at +night. + +But, in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the usual hour, and took +his usual place at the table. Aged and bent he looked, and quite bowed +down; and yet he looked a wiser man, and a better man, than in the days +when in this life he wanted nothing—but Facts. Before he left the room, +he appointed a time for them to come to him; and so, with his gray head +drooping, went away. + +‘Dear father,’ said Louisa, when they kept their appointment, ‘you have +three young children left. They will be different, I will be different +yet, with Heaven’s help.’ + +She gave her hand to Sissy, as if she meant with her help too. + +‘Your wretched brother,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Do you think he had +planned this robbery, when he went with you to the lodging?’ + +‘I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money very much, and had spent +a great deal.’ + +‘The poor man being about to leave the town, it came into his evil brain +to cast suspicion on him?’ + +‘I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat there, father. For I +asked him to go there with me. The visit did not originate with him.’ + +‘He had some conversation with the poor man. Did he take him aside?’ + +‘He took him out of the room. I asked him afterwards, why he had done +so, and he made a plausible excuse; but since last night, father, and +when I remember the circumstances by its light, I am afraid I can imagine +too truly what passed between them.’ + +‘Let me know,’ said her father, ‘if your thoughts present your guilty +brother in the same dark view as mine.’ + +‘I fear, father,’ hesitated Louisa, ‘that he must have made some +representation to Stephen Blackpool—perhaps in my name, perhaps in his +own—which induced him to do in good faith and honesty, what he had never +done before, and to wait about the Bank those two or three nights before +he left the town.’ + +‘Too plain!’ returned the father. ‘Too plain!’ + +He shaded his face, and remained silent for some moments. Recovering +himself, he said: + +‘And now, how is he to be found? How is he to be saved from justice? In +the few hours that I can possibly allow to elapse before I publish the +truth, how is he to be found by us, and only by us? Ten thousand pounds +could not effect it.’ + +‘Sissy has effected it, father.’ + +He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy in his house, +and said in a tone of softened gratitude and grateful kindness, ‘It is +always you, my child!’ + +‘We had our fears,’ Sissy explained, glancing at Louisa, ‘before +yesterday; and when I saw you brought to the side of the litter last +night, and heard what passed (being close to Rachael all the time), I +went to him when no one saw, and said to him, “Don’t look at me. See +where your father is. Escape at once, for his sake and your own!” He +was in a tremble before I whispered to him, and he started and trembled +more then, and said, “Where can I go? I have very little money, and I +don’t know who will hide me!” I thought of father’s old circus. I have +not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at this time of year, and I read of +him in a paper only the other day. I told him to hurry there, and tell +his name, and ask Mr. Sleary to hide him till I came. “I’ll get to him +before the morning,” he said. And I saw him shrink away among the +people.’ + +‘Thank Heaven!’ exclaimed his father. ‘He may be got abroad yet.’ + +It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy had directed him was +within three hours’ journey of Liverpool, whence he could be swiftly +dispatched to any part of the world. But, caution being necessary in +communicating with him—for there was a greater danger every moment of his +being suspected now, and nobody could be sure at heart but that Mr. +Bounderby himself, in a bullying vein of public zeal, might play a Roman +part—it was consented that Sissy and Louisa should repair to the place in +question, by a circuitous course, alone; and that the unhappy father, +setting forth in an opposite direction, should get round to the same +bourne by another and wider route. It was further agreed that he should +not present himself to Mr. Sleary, lest his intentions should be +mistrusted, or the intelligence of his arrival should cause his son to +take flight anew; but, that the communication should be left to Sissy and +Louisa to open; and that they should inform the cause of so much misery +and disgrace, of his father’s being at hand and of the purpose for which +they had come. When these arrangements had been well considered and were +fully understood by all three, it was time to begin to carry them into +execution. Early in the afternoon, Mr. Gradgrind walked direct from his +own house into the country, to be taken up on the line by which he was to +travel; and at night the remaining two set forth upon their different +course, encouraged by not seeing any face they knew. + +The two travelled all night, except when they were left, for odd numbers +of minutes, at branch-places, up illimitable flights of steps, or down +wells—which was the only variety of those branches—and, early in the +morning, were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two from the town they +sought. From this dismal spot they were rescued by a savage old +postilion, who happened to be up early, kicking a horse in a fly: and so +were smuggled into the town by all the back lanes where the pigs lived: +which, although not a magnificent or even savoury approach, was, as is +usual in such cases, the legitimate highway. + +The first thing they saw on entering the town was the skeleton of +Sleary’s Circus. The company had departed for another town more than +twenty miles off, and had opened there last night. The connection +between the two places was by a hilly turnpike-road, and the travelling +on that road was very slow. Though they took but a hasty breakfast, and +no rest (which it would have been in vain to seek under such anxious +circumstances), it was noon before they began to find the bills of +Sleary’s Horse-riding on barns and walls, and one o’clock when they +stopped in the market-place. + +A Grand Morning Performance by the Riders, commencing at that very hour, +was in course of announcement by the bellman as they set their feet upon +the stones of the street. Sissy recommended that, to avoid making +inquiries and attracting attention in the town, they should present +themselves to pay at the door. If Mr. Sleary were taking the money, he +would be sure to know her, and would proceed with discretion. If he were +not, he would be sure to see them inside; and, knowing what he had done +with the fugitive, would proceed with discretion still. + +Therefore, they repaired, with fluttering hearts, to the well-remembered +booth. The flag with the inscription SLEARY’S HORSE-RIDING was there; +and the Gothic niche was there; but Mr. Sleary was not there. Master +Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received by the wildest +credulity as Cupid any more, had yielded to the invincible force of +circumstances (and his beard), and, in the capacity of a man who made +himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the +exchequer—having also a drum in reserve, on which to expend his leisure +moments and superfluous forces. In the extreme sharpness of his look out +for base coin, Mr. Kidderminster, as at present situated, never saw +anything but money; so Sissy passed him unrecognised, and they went in. + +The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse stencilled with black +spots, was twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as it is the favourite +recreation of that monarch to do. Sissy, though well acquainted with his +Royal line, had no personal knowledge of the present Emperor, and his +reign was peaceful. Miss Josephine Sleary, in her celebrated graceful +Equestrian Tyrolean Flower Act, was then announced by a new clown (who +humorously said Cauliflower Act), and Mr. Sleary appeared, leading her +in. + +Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the Clown with his long whip-lash, +and the Clown had only said, ‘If you do it again, I’ll throw the horse at +you!’ when Sissy was recognised both by father and daughter. But they +got through the Act with great self-possession; and Mr. Sleary, saving +for the first instant, conveyed no more expression into his locomotive +eye than into his fixed one. The performance seemed a little long to +Sissy and Louisa, particularly when it stopped to afford the Clown an +opportunity of telling Mr. Sleary (who said ‘Indeed, sir!’ to all his +observations in the calmest way, and with his eye on the house) about two +legs sitting on three legs looking at one leg, when in came four legs, +and laid hold of one leg, and up got two legs, caught hold of three legs, +and threw ’em at four legs, who ran away with one leg. For, although an +ingenious Allegory relating to a butcher, a three-legged stool, a dog, +and a leg of mutton, this narrative consumed time; and they were in great +suspense. At last, however, little fair-haired Josephine made her +curtsey amid great applause; and the Clown, left alone in the ring, had +just warmed himself, and said, ‘Now _I_’ll have a turn!’ when Sissy was +touched on the shoulder, and beckoned out. + +She took Louisa with her; and they were received by Mr. Sleary in a very +little private apartment, with canvas sides, a grass floor, and a wooden +ceiling all aslant, on which the box company stamped their approbation, +as if they were coming through. ‘Thethilia,’ said Mr. Sleary, who had +brandy and water at hand, ‘it doth me good to thee you. You wath alwayth +a favourite with uth, and you’ve done uth credith thinth the old timeth +I’m thure. You mutht thee our people, my dear, afore we thpeak of +bithnith, or they’ll break their hearth—ethpethially the women. Here’th +Jothphine hath been and got married to E. W. B. Childerth, and thee hath +got a boy, and though he’th only three yearth old, he thtickth on to any +pony you can bring againtht him. He’th named The Little Wonder of +Thcolathtic Equitation; and if you don’t hear of that boy at Athley’th, +you’ll hear of him at Parith. And you recollect Kidderminthter, that +wath thought to be rather thweet upon yourthelf? Well. He’th married +too. Married a widder. Old enough to be hith mother. Thee wath +Tightrope, thee wath, and now thee’th nothing—on accounth of fat. +They’ve got two children, tho we’re thtrong in the Fairy bithnith and the +Nurthery dodge. If you wath to thee our Children in the Wood, with their +father and mother both a dyin’ on a horthe—their uncle a retheiving of +’em ath hith wardth, upon a horthe—themthelvth both a goin’ a +black-berryin’ on a horthe—and the Robinth a coming in to cover ’em with +leavth, upon a horthe—you’d thay it wath the completetht thing ath ever +you thet your eyeth on! And you remember Emma Gordon, my dear, ath wath +a’motht a mother to you? Of courthe you do; I needn’t athk. Well! +Emma, thee lotht her huthband. He wath throw’d a heavy back-fall off a +Elephant in a thort of a Pagoda thing ath the Thultan of the Indieth, and +he never got the better of it; and thee married a thecond time—married a +Cheethemonger ath fell in love with her from the front—and he’th a +Overtheer and makin’ a fortun.’ + +These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath now, related with +great heartiness, and with a wonderful kind of innocence, considering +what a bleary and brandy-and-watery old veteran he was. Afterwards he +brought in Josephine, and E. W. B. Childers (rather deeply lined in the +jaws by daylight), and the Little Wonder of Scholastic Equitation, and in +a word, all the company. Amazing creatures they were in Louisa’s eyes, +so white and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative +of leg; but it was very agreeable to see them crowding about Sissy, and +very natural in Sissy to be unable to refrain from tears. + +‘There! Now Thethilia hath kithd all the children, and hugged all the +women, and thaken handth all round with all the men, clear, every one of +you, and ring in the band for the thecond part!’ + +As soon as they were gone, he continued in a low tone. ‘Now, Thethilia, +I don’t athk to know any thecreth, but I thuppothe I may conthider thith +to be Mith Thquire.’ + +‘This is his sister. Yes.’ + +‘And t’other on’th daughter. That’h what I mean. Hope I thee you well, +mith. And I hope the Thquire’th well?’ + +‘My father will be here soon,’ said Louisa, anxious to bring him to the +point. ‘Is my brother safe?’ + +‘Thafe and thound!’ he replied. ‘I want you jutht to take a peep at the +Ring, mith, through here. Thethilia, you know the dodgeth; find a +thpy-hole for yourthelf.’ + +They each looked through a chink in the boards. + +‘That’h Jack the Giant Killer—piethe of comic infant bithnith,’ said +Sleary. ‘There’th a property-houthe, you thee, for Jack to hide in; +there’th my Clown with a thauthepan-lid and a thpit, for Jack’th +thervant; there’th little Jack himthelf in a thplendid thoot of armour; +there’th two comic black thervanth twithe ath big ath the houthe, to +thtand by it and to bring it in and clear it; and the Giant (a very +ecthpenthive bathket one), he an’t on yet. Now, do you thee ’em all?’ + +‘Yes,’ they both said. + +‘Look at ’em again,’ said Sleary, ‘look at ’em well. You thee em all? +Very good. Now, mith;’ he put a form for them to sit on; ‘I have my +opinionth, and the Thquire your father hath hith. I don’t want to know +what your brother’th been up to; ith better for me not to know. All I +thay ith, the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by the +Thquire. Your brother ith one them black thervanth.’ + +Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly of +satisfaction. + +‘Ith a fact,’ said Sleary, ‘and even knowin’ it, you couldn’t put your +finger on him. Let the Thquire come. I thall keep your brother here +after the performanth. I thant undreth him, nor yet wath hith paint off. +Let the Thquire come here after the performanth, or come here yourthelf +after the performanth, and you thall find your brother, and have the +whole plathe to talk to him in. Never mind the lookth of him, ath long +ath he’th well hid.’ + +Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, detained Mr. Sleary +no longer then. She left her love for her brother, with her eyes full of +tears; and she and Sissy went away until later in the afternoon. + +Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too had encountered +no one whom he knew; and was now sanguine with Sleary’s assistance, of +getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of the +three could be his companion without almost identifying him under any +disguise, he prepared a letter to a correspondent whom he could trust, +beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or South +America, or any distant part of the world to which he could be the most +speedily and privately dispatched. + +This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be quite vacated; +not only by the audience, but by the company and by the horses. After +watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit +down by the side-door, smoking; as if that were his signal that they +might approach. + +‘Your thervant, Thquire,’ was his cautious salutation as they passed in. +‘If you want me you’ll find me here. You muthn’t mind your thon having a +comic livery on.’ + +They all three went in; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on the +Clown’s performing chair in the middle of the ring. On one of the back +benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of the place, +sat the villainous whelp, sulky to the last, whom he had the misery to +call his son. + +In a preposterous coat, like a beadle’s, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated +to an unspeakable extent; in an immense waistcoat, knee-breeches, buckled +shoes, and a mad cocked hat; with nothing fitting him, and everything of +coarse material, moth-eaten and full of holes; with seams in his black +face, where fear and heat had started through the greasy composition +daubed all over it; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful +as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other +means have believed in, weighable and measurable fact though it was. And +one of his model children had come to this! + +At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in remaining +up there by himself. Yielding at length, if any concession so sullenly +made can be called yielding, to the entreaties of Sissy—for Louisa he +disowned altogether—he came down, bench by bench, until he stood in the +sawdust, on the verge of the circle, as far as possible, within its +limits from where his father sat. + +‘How was this done?’ asked the father. + +‘How was what done?’ moodily answered the son. + +‘This robbery,’ said the father, raising his voice upon the word. + +‘I forced the safe myself over night, and shut it up ajar before I went +away. I had had the key that was found, made long before. I dropped it +that morning, that it might be supposed to have been used. I didn’t take +the money all at once. I pretended to put my balance away every night, +but I didn’t. Now you know all about it.’ + +‘If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,’ said the father, ‘it would have +shocked me less than this!’ + +‘I don’t see why,’ grumbled the son. ‘So many people are employed in +situations of trust; so many people, out of so many, will be dishonest. +I have heard you talk, a hundred times, of its being a law. How can _I_ +help laws? You have comforted others with such things, father. Comfort +yourself!’ + +The father buried his face in his hands, and the son stood in his +disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw: his hands, with the black partly +worn away inside, looking like the hands of a monkey. The evening was +fast closing in; and from time to time, he turned the whites of his eyes +restlessly and impatiently towards his father. They were the only parts +of his face that showed any life or expression, the pigment upon it was +so thick. + +‘You must be got to Liverpool, and sent abroad.’ + +‘I suppose I must. I can’t be more miserable anywhere,’ whimpered the +whelp, ‘than I have been here, ever since I can remember. That’s one +thing.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and returned with Sleary, to whom he +submitted the question, How to get this deplorable object away? + +‘Why, I’ve been thinking of it, Thquire. There’th not muth time to +lothe, tho you muth thay yeth or no. Ith over twenty mileth to the rail. +There’th a coath in half an hour, that goeth _to_ the rail, ‘purpothe to +cath the mail train. That train will take him right to Liverpool.’ + +‘But look at him,’ groaned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Will any coach—’ + +‘I don’t mean that he thould go in the comic livery,’ said Sleary. ‘Thay +the word, and I’ll make a Jothkin of him, out of the wardrobe, in five +minutes.’ + +‘I don’t understand,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘A Jothkin—a Carter. Make up your mind quick, Thquire. There’ll be beer +to feth. I’ve never met with nothing but beer ath’ll ever clean a comic +blackamoor.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented; Mr. Sleary rapidly turned out from a box, +a smock frock, a felt hat, and other essentials; the whelp rapidly +changed clothes behind a screen of baize; Mr. Sleary rapidly brought +beer, and washed him white again. + +‘Now,’ said Sleary, ‘come along to the coath, and jump up behind; I’ll go +with you there, and they’ll thuppothe you one of my people. Thay +farewell to your family, and tharp’th the word.’ With which he +delicately retired. + +‘Here is your letter,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘All necessary means will be +provided for you. Atone, by repentance and better conduct, for the +shocking action you have committed, and the dreadful consequences to +which it has led. Give me your hand, my poor boy, and may God forgive +you as I do!’ + +The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these words and their +pathetic tone. But, when Louisa opened her arms, he repulsed her afresh. + +‘Not you. I don’t want to have anything to say to you!’ + +‘O Tom, Tom, do we end so, after all my love!’ + +‘After all your love!’ he returned, obdurately. ‘Pretty love! Leaving +old Bounderby to himself, and packing my best friend Mr. Harthouse off, +and going home just when I was in the greatest danger. Pretty love that! +Coming out with every word about our having gone to that place, when you +saw the net was gathering round me. Pretty love that! You have +regularly given me up. You never cared for me.’ + +‘Tharp’th the word!’ said Sleary, at the door. + +They all confusedly went out: Louisa crying to him that she forgave him, +and loved him still, and that he would one day be sorry to have left her +so, and glad to think of these her last words, far away: when some one +ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind and Sissy, who were both before him +while his sister yet clung to his shoulder, stopped and recoiled. + +For, there was Bitzer, out of breath, his thin lips parted, his thin +nostrils distended, his white eyelashes quivering, his colourless face +more colourless than ever, as if he ran himself into a white heat, when +other people ran themselves into a glow. There he stood, panting and +heaving, as if he had never stopped since the night, now long ago, when +he had run them down before. + +‘I’m sorry to interfere with your plans,’ said Bitzer, shaking his head, +‘but I can’t allow myself to be done by horse-riders. I must have young +Mr. Tom; he mustn’t be got away by horse-riders; here he is in a smock +frock, and I must have him!’ + +By the collar, too, it seemed. For, so he took possession of him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII +PHILOSOPHICAL + + +THEY went back into the booth, Sleary shutting the door to keep intruders +out. Bitzer, still holding the paralysed culprit by the collar, stood in +the Ring, blinking at his old patron through the darkness of the +twilight. + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and miserably submissive to +him, ‘have you a heart?’ + +‘The circulation, sir,’ returned Bitzer, smiling at the oddity of the +question, ‘couldn’t be carried on without one. No man, sir, acquainted +with the facts established by Harvey relating to the circulation of the +blood, can doubt that I have a heart.’ + +‘Is it accessible,’ cried Mr. Gradgrind, ‘to any compassionate +influence?’ + +‘It is accessible to Reason, sir,’ returned the excellent young man. +‘And to nothing else.’ + +They stood looking at each other; Mr. Gradgrind’s face as white as the +pursuer’s. + +‘What motive—even what motive in reason—can you have for preventing the +escape of this wretched youth,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘and crushing his +miserable father? See his sister here. Pity us!’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Bitzer, in a very business-like and logical manner, +‘since you ask me what motive I have in reason, for taking young Mr. Tom +back to Coketown, it is only reasonable to let you know. I have +suspected young Mr. Tom of this bank-robbery from the first. I had had +my eye upon him before that time, for I knew his ways. I have kept my +observations to myself, but I have made them; and I have got ample proofs +against him now, besides his running away, and besides his own +confession, which I was just in time to overhear. I had the pleasure of +watching your house yesterday morning, and following you here. I am +going to take young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him +over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Bounderby +will then promote me to young Mr. Tom’s situation. And I wish to have +his situation, sir, for it will be a rise to me, and will do me good.’ + +‘If this is solely a question of self-interest with you—’ Mr. Gradgrind +began. + +‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,’ returned Bitzer; ‘but I am +sure you know that the whole social system is a question of +self-interest. What you must always appeal to, is a person’s +self-interest. It’s your only hold. We are so constituted. I was +brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are +aware.’ + +‘What sum of money,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘will you set against your +expected promotion?’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Bitzer, ‘for hinting at the proposal; but I +will not set any sum against it. Knowing that your clear head would +propose that alternative, I have gone over the calculations in my mind; +and I find that to compound a felony, even on very high terms indeed, +would not be as safe and good for me as my improved prospects in the +Bank.’ + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he would +have said, See how miserable I am! ‘Bitzer, I have but one chance left +to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of +the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any +degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, I entreat +and pray you to give him the benefit of that remembrance.’ + +‘I really wonder, sir,’ rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative +manner, ‘to find you taking a position so untenable. My schooling was +paid for; it was a bargain; and when I came away, the bargain ended.’ + +It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that +everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give +anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was +to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every +inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a +bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it +was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there. + +‘I don’t deny,’ added Bitzer, ‘that my schooling was cheap. But that +comes right, sir. I was made in the cheapest market, and have to dispose +of myself in the dearest.’ + +He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and Sissy crying. + +‘Pray don’t do that,’ said he, ‘it’s of no use doing that: it only +worries. You seem to think that I have some animosity against young Mr. +Tom; whereas I have none at all. I am only going, on the reasonable +grounds I have mentioned, to take him back to Coketown. If he was to +resist, I should set up the cry of Stop thief! But, he won’t resist, you +may depend upon it.’ + +Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as immovably +jammed in his head as his fixed one, had listened to these doctrines with +profound attention, here stepped forward. + +‘Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter knowth perfectly +well (better than you, becauthe I thed it to her), that I didn’t know +what your thon had done, and that I didn’t want to know—I thed it wath +better not, though I only thought, then, it wath thome thkylarking. +However, thith young man having made it known to be a robbery of a bank, +why, that’h a theriouth thing; muth too theriouth a thing for me to +compound, ath thith young man hath very properly called it. +Conthequently, Thquire, you muthn’t quarrel with me if I take thith young +man’th thide, and thay he’th right and there’th no help for it. But I +tell you what I’ll do, Thquire; I’ll drive your thon and thith young man +over to the rail, and prevent expothure here. I can’t conthent to do +more, but I’ll do that.’ + +Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and deeper affliction on Mr. Gradgrind’s +part, followed this desertion of them by their last friend. But, Sissy +glanced at him with great attention; nor did she in her own breast +misunderstand him. As they were all going out again, he favoured her +with one slight roll of his movable eye, desiring her to linger behind. +As he locked the door, he said excitedly: + +‘The Thquire thtood by you, Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by the Thquire. +More than that: thith ith a prethiouth rathcal, and belongth to that +bluthtering Cove that my people nearly pitht out o’ winder. It’ll be a +dark night; I’ve got a horthe that’ll do anything but thpeak; I’ve got a +pony that’ll go fifteen mile an hour with Childerth driving of him; I’ve +got a dog that’ll keep a man to one plathe four-and-twenty hourth. Get a +word with the young Thquire. Tell him, when he theeth our horthe begin +to danthe, not to be afraid of being thpilt, but to look out for a +pony-gig coming up. Tell him, when he theeth that gig clothe by, to jump +down, and it’ll take him off at a rattling pathe. If my dog leth thith +young man thtir a peg on foot, I give him leave to go. And if my horthe +ever thtirth from that thpot where he beginth a danthing, till the +morning—I don’t know him?—Tharp’th the word!’ + +The word was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Childers, sauntering about +the market-place in a pair of slippers, had his cue, and Mr. Sleary’s +equipage was ready. It was a fine sight, to behold the learned dog +barking round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him, with his one +practicable eye, that Bitzer was the object of his particular attentions. +Soon after dark they all three got in and started; the learned dog (a +formidable creature) already pinning Bitzer with his eye, and sticking +close to the wheel on his side, that he might be ready for him in the +event of his showing the slightest disposition to alight. + +The other three sat up at the inn all night in great suspense. At eight +o’clock in the morning Mr. Sleary and the dog reappeared: both in high +spirits. + +‘All right, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, ‘your thon may be aboard-a-thip by +thith time. Childerth took him off, an hour and a half after we left +there latht night. The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat +(he would have walthed if he hadn’t been in harneth), and then I gave him +the word and he went to thleep comfortable. When that prethiouth young +Rathcal thed he’d go for’ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith +neck-hankercher with all four legth in the air and pulled him down and +rolled him over. Tho he come back into the drag, and there he that, +’till I turned the horthe’th head, at half-patht thixth thith morning.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of course; and hinted as +delicately as he could, at a handsome remuneration in money. + +‘I don’t want money mythelf, Thquire; but Childerth ith a family man, and +if you wath to like to offer him a five-pound note, it mightn’t be +unactheptable. Likewithe if you wath to thtand a collar for the dog, or +a thet of bellth for the horthe, I thould be very glad to take ’em. +Brandy and water I alwayth take.’ He had already called for a glass, and +now called for another. ‘If you wouldn’t think it going too far, +Thquire, to make a little thpread for the company at about three and +thixth ahead, not reckoning Luth, it would make ’em happy.’ + +All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind very willingly +undertook to render. Though he thought them far too slight, he said, for +such a service. + +‘Very well, Thquire; then, if you’ll only give a Horthe-riding, a +bethpeak, whenever you can, you’ll more than balanthe the account. Now, +Thquire, if your daughter will ethcuthe me, I thould like one parting +word with you.’ + +Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room; Mr. Sleary, stirring +and drinking his brandy and water as he stood, went on: + +‘Thquire,—you don’t need to be told that dogth ith wonderful animalth.’ + +‘Their instinct,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘is surprising.’ + +‘Whatever you call it—and I’m bletht if _I_ know what to call it’—said +Sleary, ‘it ith athtonithing. The way in whith a dog’ll find you—the +dithtanthe he’ll come!’ + +‘His scent,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘being so fine.’ + +‘I’m bletht if I know what to call it,’ repeated Sleary, shaking his +head, ‘but I have had dogth find me, Thquire, in a way that made me think +whether that dog hadn’t gone to another dog, and thed, “You don’t happen +to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, do you? Perthon of the name of +Thleary, in the Horthe-Riding way—thtout man—game eye?” And whether that +dog mightn’t have thed, “Well, I can’t thay I know him mythelf, but I +know a dog that I think would be likely to be acquainted with him.” And +whether that dog mightn’t have thought it over, and thed, “Thleary, +Thleary! O yeth, to be thure! A friend of mine menthioned him to me at +one time. I can get you hith addreth directly.” In conthequenth of my +being afore the public, and going about tho muth, you thee, there mutht +be a number of dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that _I_ don’t know!’ + +Mr. Gradgrind seemed to be quite confounded by this speculation. + +‘Any way,’ said Sleary, after putting his lips to his brandy and water, +‘ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, thinthe we wath at Chethter. We wath +getting up our Children in the Wood one morning, when there cometh into +our Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He had travelled a long way, he +wath in a very bad condithon, he wath lame, and pretty well blind. He +went round to our children, one after another, as if he wath a theeking +for a child he know’d; and then he come to me, and throwd hithelf up +behind, and thtood on hith two forelegth, weak ath he wath, and then he +wagged hith tail and died. Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth.’ + +‘Sissy’s father’s dog!’ + +‘Thethilia’th father’th old dog. Now, Thquire, I can take my oath, from +my knowledge of that dog, that that man wath dead—and buried—afore that +dog come back to me. Joth’phine and Childerth and me talked it over a +long time, whether I thould write or not. But we agreed, “No. There’th +nothing comfortable to tell; why unthettle her mind, and make her +unhappy?” Tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he +broke hith own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him; +never will be known, now, Thquire, till—no, not till we know how the +dogth findth uth out!’ + +‘She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour; and she will +believe in his affection to the last moment of her life,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. + +‘It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, don’t it, Thquire?’ +said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down into the depths of his brandy +and water: ‘one, that there ith a love in the world, not all +Thelf-interetht after all, but thomething very different; t’other, that +it hath a way of ith own of calculating or not calculating, whith +thomehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a name to, ath the +wayth of the dogth ith!’ + +Mr. Gradgrind looked out of window, and made no reply. Mr. Sleary +emptied his glass and recalled the ladies. + +‘Thethilia my dear, kith me and good-bye! Mith Thquire, to thee you +treating of her like a thithter, and a thithter that you trutht and +honour with all your heart and more, ith a very pretty thight to me. I +hope your brother may live to be better detherving of you, and a greater +comfort to you. Thquire, thake handth, firtht and latht! Don’t be croth +with uth poor vagabondth. People mutht be amuthed. They can’t be +alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working, they an’t +made for it. You _mutht_ have uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the +kind thing too, and make the betht of uth; not the wurtht!’ + +‘And I never thought before,’ said Mr. Sleary, putting his head in at the +door again to say it, ‘that I wath tho muth of a Cackler!’ + + + + +CHAPTER IX +FINAL + + +IT is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain +blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt +that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be +wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant +discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part of a +woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it +accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At last he made the +discovery that to discharge this highly connected female—to have it in +his power to say, ‘She was a woman of family, and wanted to stick to me, +but I wouldn’t have it, and got rid of her’—would be to get the utmost +possible amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at the same +time to punish Mrs. Sparsit according to her deserts. + +Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr. Bounderby came in to +lunch, and sat himself down in the dining-room of former days, where his +portrait was. Mrs. Sparsit sat by the fire, with her foot in her cotton +stirrup, little thinking whither she was posting. + +Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered her pity for Mr. +Bounderby with a veil of quiet melancholy and contrition. In virtue +thereof, it had become her habit to assume a woful look, which woful look +she now bestowed upon her patron. + +‘What’s the matter now, ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby, in a very short, +rough way. + +‘Pray, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘do not bite my nose off.’ + +‘Bite your nose off, ma’am?’ repeated Mr. Bounderby. ‘_Your_ nose!’ +meaning, as Mrs. Sparsit conceived, that it was too developed a nose for +the purpose. After which offensive implication, he cut himself a crust +of bread, and threw the knife down with a noise. + +Mrs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stirrup, and said, ‘Mr. Bounderby, +sir!’ + +‘Well, ma’am?’ retorted Mr. Bounderby. ‘What are you staring at?’ + +‘May I ask, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘have you been ruffled this +morning?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am.’ + +‘May I inquire, sir,’ pursued the injured woman, ‘whether _I_ am the +unfortunate cause of your having lost your temper?’ + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘I am not come here to +be bullied. A female may be highly connected, but she can’t be permitted +to bother and badger a man in my position, and I am not going to put up +with it.’ (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary to get on: foreseeing that if +he allowed of details, he would be beaten.) + +Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriolanian eyebrows; +gathered up her work into its proper basket; and rose. + +‘Sir,’ said she, majestically. ‘It is apparent to me that I am in your +way at present. I will retire to my own apartment.’ + +‘Allow me to open the door, ma’am.’ + +‘Thank you, sir; I can do it for myself.’ + +‘You had better allow me, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, passing her, and +getting his hand upon the lock; ‘because I can take the opportunity of +saying a word to you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I rather think +you are cramped here, do you know? It appears to me, that, under my +humble roof, there’s hardly opening enough for a lady of your genius in +other people’s affairs.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and said with great +politeness, ‘Really, sir?’ + +‘I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late affairs have +happened, ma’am,’ said Bounderby; ‘and it appears to my poor judgment—’ + +‘Oh! Pray, sir,’ Mrs. Sparsit interposed, with sprightly cheerfulness, +‘don’t disparage your judgment. Everybody knows how unerring Mr. +Bounderby’s judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of it. It must be the +theme of general conversation. Disparage anything in yourself but your +judgment, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, laughing. + +Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed: + +‘It appears to me, ma’am, I say, that a different sort of establishment +altogether would bring out a lady of _your_ powers. Such an +establishment as your relation, Lady Scadgers’s, now. Don’t you think +you might find some affairs there, ma’am, to interfere with?’ + +‘It never occurred to me before, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit; ‘but now +you mention it, should think it highly probable.’ + +‘Then suppose you try, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, laying an envelope with a +cheque in it in her little basket. ‘You can take your own time for +going, ma’am; but perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be more agreeable to +a lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals by herself, and not to be +intruded upon. I really ought to apologise to you—being only Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown—for having stood in your light so long.’ + +‘Pray don’t name it, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘If that portrait +could speak, sir—but it has the advantage over the original of not +possessing the power of committing itself and disgusting others,—it would +testify, that a long period has elapsed since I first habitually +addressed it as the picture of a Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle does, can +awaken surprise or indignation; the proceedings of a Noodle can only +inspire contempt.’ + +Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features like a medal struck to +commemorate her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him fixedly from head to +foot, swept disdainfully past him, and ascended the staircase. Mr. +Bounderby closed the door, and stood before the fire; projecting himself +after his old explosive manner into his portrait—and into futurity. + + * * * * * + +Into how much of futurity? He saw Mrs. Sparsit fighting out a daily +fight at the points of all the weapons in the female armoury, with the +grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting Lady Scadgers, still laid up in +bed with her mysterious leg, and gobbling her insufficient income down by +about the middle of every quarter, in a mean little airless lodging, a +mere closet for one, a mere crib for two; but did he see more? Did he +catch any glimpse of himself making a show of Bitzer to strangers, as the +rising young man, so devoted to his master’s great merits, who had won +young Tom’s place, and had almost captured young Tom himself, in the +times when by various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint +reflection of his own image making a vain-glorious will, whereby +five-and-twenty Humbugs, past five-and-fifty years of age, each taking +upon himself the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, should for ever dine +in Bounderby Hall, for ever lodge in Bounderby buildings, for ever attend +a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to sleep under a Bounderby chaplain, for +ever be supported out of a Bounderby estate, and for ever nauseate all +healthy stomachs, with a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and bluster? +Had he any prescience of the day, five years to come, when Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown was to die of a fit in the Coketown street, and +this same precious will was to begin its long career of quibble, plunder, +false pretences, vile example, little service and much law? Probably +not. Yet the portrait was to see it all out. + +Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour, sitting +thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity did _he_ see? Did he +see himself, a white-haired decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflexible +theories to appointed circumstances; making his facts and figures +subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity; and no longer trying to grind +that Heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight of +himself, therefore much despised by his late political associates? Did +he see them, in the era of its being quite settled that the national +dustmen have only to do with one another, and owe no duty to an +abstraction called a People, ‘taunting the honourable gentleman’ with +this and with that and with what not, five nights a-week, until the small +hours of the morning? Probably he had that much foreknowledge, knowing +his men. + + * * * * * + +Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the fire as in +days of yore, though with a gentler and a humbler face. How much of the +future might arise before _her_ vision? Broadsides in the streets, +signed with her father’s name, exonerating the late Stephen Blackpool, +weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing the guilt of his own +son, with such extenuation as his years and temptation (he could not +bring himself to add, his education) might beseech; were of the Present. +So, Stephen Blackpool’s tombstone, with her father’s record of his death, +was almost of the Present, for she knew it was to be. These things she +could plainly see. But, how much of the Future? + +A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once again +appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to and fro at +the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of pensive beauty, +always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and serene, and even +cheerful; who, of all the people in the place, alone appeared to have +compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of her own sex, who was +sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of her, and crying to her; a +woman working, ever working, but content to do it, and preferring to do +it as her natural lot, until she should be too old to labour any more? +Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was to be. + +A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away, writing, on paper blotted +with tears, that her words had too soon come true, and that all the +treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear +face? At length this brother coming nearer home, with hope of seeing +her, and being delayed by illness; and then a letter, in a strange hand, +saying ‘he died in hospital, of fever, such a day, and died in penitence +and love of you: his last word being your name’? Did Louisa see these +things? Such things were to be. + +Herself again a wife—a mother—lovingly watchful of her children, ever +careful that they should have a childhood of the mind no less than a +childhood of the body, as knowing it to be even a more beautiful thing, +and a possession, any hoarded scrap of which, is a blessing and happiness +to the wisest? Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was never to be. + +But, happy Sissy’s happy children loving her; all children loving her; +she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty +fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler +fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality +with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of +infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally +stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show, will +be the Writing on the Wall,—she holding this course as part of no +fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or +covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be +done,—did Louisa see these things of herself? These things were to be. + +Dear reader! It rests with you and me, whether, in our two fields of +action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be! We shall sit with +lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and +cold. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{0} _Reprinted Pieces_ was released as a separate eText by Project +Gutenberg, and is not included in this eText. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARD TIMES ***
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-0.zip b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3cd944 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-0.zip diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h.zip b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..79aa0a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h.zip diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/786-h.htm b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/786-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c0e0df --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/786-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12145 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>Hard Times | Project Gutenberg</title> +<style> + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1><span class="smcap">Hard Times</span><br> +<span class="smcap">and</span><br> +<span class="smcap">Reprinted Pieces</span> <a id="citation0"></a><a href="#footnote0" +class="citation">[0]</a></h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">By CHARLES DICKENS</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><b><i>With illustrations by Marcus +Stone</i></b>, <b><i>Maurice</i></b><br> +<b><i>Greiffenhagen</i></b>, <b><i>and F. Walker</i></b></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, <span +class="GutSmall">LD.</span><br> +NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS</p> +<p style="text-align: center">1905</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><i>BOOK THE +FIRST</i>. <i>SOWING</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>The One Thing Needful</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Murdering the Innocents</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>A Loophole</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Mr. Bounderby</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>The Keynote</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page18">18</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Sleary’s Horsemanship</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Mrs. Sparsit</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Never Wonder</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Sissy’s Progress</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Stephen Blackpool</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>No Way Out</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page53">53</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>The Old Woman</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Rachael</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>The Great Manufacturer</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page69">69</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Father and Daughter</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page73">73</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Husband and Wife</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><i>BOOK THE +SECOND</i>. <i>REAPING</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Effects in the Bank</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Mr. James Harthouse</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>The Whelp</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page101">101</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Men and Brothers</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page111">111</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Men and Masters</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page105">105</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Fading Away</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Gunpowder</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page126">126</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Explosion</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page136">136</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Hearing the Last of it</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page146">146</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Mrs. Sparsit’s Staircase</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page152">152</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Lower and Lower</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page156">156</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Down</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page163">163</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><i>BOOK THE +THIRD</i>. <i>GARNERING</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Another Thing Needful</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Very Ridiculous</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Very Decided</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page179">179</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Lost</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page186">186</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Found</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page193">193</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>The Starlight</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page200">200</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Whelp-Hunting</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Philosophical</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Final</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Stephen and Rachael in the Sick-room</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page64">64</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Mr. Harthouse Dining at the Bounderbys’</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the Garden</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page132">132</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell +Shaft</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page206">206</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a id="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>BOOK THE +FIRST<br> +<i>SOWING</i></h2> +<h3>CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE ONE THING NEEDFUL</span></h3> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Now</span>, what I want is, +Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. +Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and +root out everything else. You can only form the minds of +reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any +service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up +my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up +these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’</p> +<p>The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a +school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized +his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on +the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by +the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his +eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage +in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis +was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, +and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the +speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and +dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s +hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation +of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered +with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had +scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. +The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, +square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take +him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn +fact, as it was,—all helped the emphasis.</p> +<p><a id="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>‘In +this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but +Facts!’</p> +<p>The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person +present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the +inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in +order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them +until they were full to the brim.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MURDERING THE INNOCENTS</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Thomas Gradgrind</span>, sir. A man +of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man +who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and +nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for +anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily +Thomas—Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of +scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, +ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell +you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of +figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get +some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, +or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind +(all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of +Thomas Gradgrind—no, sir!</p> +<p>In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced +himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the +public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting +the words ‘boys and girls,’ for ‘sir,’ +Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little +pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.</p> +<p>Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage +before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle +with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of +childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing +apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the +tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.</p> +<p>‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely +pointing with his square forefinger, ‘I don’t know +that girl. Who is that girl?’</p> +<p>‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, +blushing, standing up, and curtseying.</p> +<p>‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. +‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself +Cecilia.’</p> +<p>‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ +returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another +curtsey.</p> +<p>‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia +Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’</p> +<p>‘He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, +sir.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling +with his hand.</p> +<p>‘We don’t want to know anything about that, +here. You mustn’t tell us about that, here. +Your father breaks horses, don’t he?’</p> +<p>‘If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, +they do break horses in the ring, sir.’</p> +<p>‘You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. +Very well, then. Describe your father as a +horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare +say?’</p> +<p>‘Oh yes, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a +farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a +horse.’</p> +<p>(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this +demand.)</p> +<p>‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ +said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little +pitchers. ‘Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, +in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some +boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, +yours.’</p> +<p>The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on +Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of +sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the +intensely white-washed room, irradiated Sissy. For, the +boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two +compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and +Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in +for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the +corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught +the end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and +dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a deeper and more +lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone upon her, the boy was +so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same rays appeared +to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. +His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends +of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with +something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His +short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the +sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so +unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as +though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.</p> +<p>‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your +definition of a horse.’</p> +<p>‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, +namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve +incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, +sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with +iron. Age known by marks in mouth.’ Thus (and +much more) Bitzer.</p> +<p>‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horse is.’</p> +<p>She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she +could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this +time. Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind +with both eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his +quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennæ +of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and +sat down again.</p> +<p>The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at +cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and +in most other people’s too), a professed pugilist; always +in training, always with a system to force down the general +throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his +little Public-office, ready to fight all England. To +continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to +the scratch, wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an +ugly customer. He would go in and damage any subject +whatever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, +counter, bore his opponent (he always fought All England) to the +ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock +the wind out of common sense, and render that unlucky adversary +deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from high +authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, when +Commissioners should reign upon earth.</p> +<p>‘Very well,’ said this gentleman, briskly smiling, +and folding his arms. ‘That’s a horse. +Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper a room with +representations of horses?’</p> +<p>After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, +‘Yes, sir!’ Upon which the other half, seeing +in the gentleman’s face that Yes was wrong, cried out in +chorus, ‘No, sir!’—as the custom is, in these +examinations.</p> +<p>‘Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?’</p> +<p>A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of +breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a +room at all, but would paint it.</p> +<p>‘You <i>must</i> paper it,’ said the gentleman, +rather warmly.</p> +<p>‘You must paper it,’ said Thomas Gradgrind, +‘whether you like it or not. Don’t tell +<i>us</i> you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, +boy?’</p> +<p>‘I’ll explain to you, then,’ said the +gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, ‘why you +wouldn’t paper a room with representations of horses. +Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in +reality—in fact? Do you?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir!’ from one half. ‘No, +sir!’ from the other.</p> +<p>‘Of course no,’ said the gentleman, with an +indignant look at the wrong half. ‘Why, then, you are +not to see anywhere, what you don’t see in fact; you are +not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. +What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact.’ +Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.</p> +<p>‘This is a new principle, a discovery, a great +discovery,’ said the gentleman. ‘Now, +I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet +a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of +flowers upon it?’</p> +<p>There being a general conviction by this time that ‘No, +sir!’ was always the right answer to this gentleman, the +chorus of <span class="smcap">No</span> was very strong. +Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe.</p> +<p>‘Girl number twenty,’ said the gentleman, smiling +in the calm strength of knowledge.</p> +<p>Sissy blushed, and stood up.</p> +<p>‘So you would carpet your room—or your +husband’s room, if you were a grown woman, and had a +husband—with representations of flowers, would you?’ +said the gentleman. ‘Why would you?’</p> +<p>‘If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,’ +returned the girl.</p> +<p>‘And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon +them, and have people walking over them with heavy +boots?’</p> +<p>‘It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They +wouldn’t crush and wither, if you please, sir. They +would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I +would fancy—’</p> +<p>‘Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn’t fancy,’ +cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his +point. ‘That’s it! You are never to +fancy.’</p> +<p>‘You are not, Cecilia Jupe,’ Thomas Gradgrind +solemnly repeated, ‘to do anything of that kind.’</p> +<p>‘Fact, fact, fact!’ said the gentleman. And +‘Fact, fact, fact!’ repeated Thomas Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘You are to be in all things regulated and +governed,’ said the gentleman, ‘by fact. We +hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of +commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people +of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word +Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You +are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be +a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers +in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in +carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and +butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be +permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your +crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down +walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. +You must use,’ said the gentleman, ‘for all these +purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of +mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and +demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is +fact. This is taste.’</p> +<p>The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, +and she <a id="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact +prospect the world afforded.</p> +<p>‘Now, if Mr. M’Choakumchild,’ said the +gentleman, ‘will proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. +Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request, to observe his mode +of procedure.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. ‘Mr. +M’Choakumchild, we only wait for you.’</p> +<p>So, Mr. M’Choakumchild began in his best manner. +He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been +lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same +principles, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put +through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of +head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, +and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general +cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, +land-surveying and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from +models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He +had worked his stony way into Her Majesty’s most Honourable +Privy Council’s Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off the +higher branches of mathematics and physical science, French, +German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water +Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories +of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and +mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all +the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two +and thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, +M’Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, +how infinitely better he might have taught much more!</p> +<p>He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike +Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels +ranged before him, one after another, to see what they +contained. Say, good M’Choakumchild. When from +thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, +dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber +Fancy lurking within—or sometimes only maim him and distort +him!</p> +<h3>CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="GutSmall">A LOOPHOLE</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gradgrind</span> walked homeward from +the school, in a state of considerable satisfaction. It was +his school, and he intended it to be a model. He intended +every child in it to be a model—just as the young +Gradgrinds were all models.</p> +<p>There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every +one. They had been lectured at, from their tenderest years; +coursed, like little hares. Almost as soon as they could +run alone, they had been made to run to the lecture-room. +The first object with which they had an association, or of which +they had a remembrance, was a large black board with a dry Ogre +chalking ghastly white figures on it.</p> +<p>Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an Ogre +Fact forbid! I only use the word to express a monster in a +lecturing castle, with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated +into one, taking childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy +statistical dens by the hair.</p> +<p>No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was +up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little +Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, +little star; how I wonder what you are! No little Gradgrind +had ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind +having at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a +Professor Owen, and driven Charles’s Wain like a locomotive +engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a +cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who +tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the +malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb: +it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been +introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with +several stomachs.</p> +<p>To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. +Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from +the wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was +now looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an +arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated +on a moor within a mile or two of a great town—called +Coketown in the present faithful guide-book.</p> +<p>A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge +was. Not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that +uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great square house, +with a heavy portico darkening the principal windows, as its +master’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A +calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six +windows on this side of the door, six on that side; a total of +twelve in this wing, a total of twelve in the other wing; +four-and-twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and +garden and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical +account-book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and +water-service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and +girders, fire-proof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts for the +housemaids, with all their brushes and brooms; everything that +heart could desire.</p> +<p>Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little +Gradgrinds had cabinets in various departments of science +too. They had a little conchological cabinet, and a little +metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet; and +the specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits of +stone and ore looked as though they might have been broken from +the parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments +their own names; and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter +Piper, who had never found his way into their nursery, If the +greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it +for good gracious goodness’ sake, that the greedy little +Gradgrinds grasped it!</p> +<p>Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of +mind. He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but +he would probably have described himself (if he had been put, +like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as ‘an eminently +practical’ father. He had a particular pride in the +phrase eminently practical, which was considered to have a +special application to him. Whatsoever the public meeting +held in Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such meeting, +some Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his +eminently practical friend Gradgrind. This always pleased +the eminently practical friend. He knew it to be his due, +but his due was acceptable.</p> +<p>He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the +town, which was neither town nor country, and yet was either +spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the sound of music. +The clashing and banging band attached to the horse-riding +establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden +pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating from the +summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was +‘Sleary’s Horse-riding’ which claimed their +suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a +money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early +Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, +as some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill +announced, was then inaugurating the entertainments with her +graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act. Among the other +pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which must be seen to +be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to ‘elucidate +the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing +dog Merrylegs.’ He was also to exhibit ‘his +astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid +succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of +solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or +any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous +plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be +withdrawn.’ The same Signor Jupe was to +‘enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with +his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.’ Lastly, he +was to wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of +Mr. William Button, of Tooley Street, in ‘the highly novel +and laughable hippo-comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to +Brentford.’</p> +<p>Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, +but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either +brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them +to the House of Correction. But, the turning of the road +took him by the back of the booth, and at the back of the booth a +number of children were congregated in a number of stealthy +attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the +place.</p> +<p>This brought him to a stop. ‘Now, to think of +these vagabonds,’ said he, ‘attracting the young +rabble from a model school.’</p> +<p>A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and +the young rabble, he took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to +look for any child he knew by name, and might order off. +Phenomenon almost incredible though distinctly seen, what did he +then behold but his own metallurgical Louisa, peeping with all +her might through a hole in a deal board, and his own +mathematical Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a +hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act!</p> +<p>Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where +his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring +child, and said:</p> +<p>‘Louisa!! Thomas!!’</p> +<p>Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked at +her father with more boldness than Thomas did. Indeed, +Thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken home +like a machine.</p> +<p>‘In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!’ said +Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; ‘what do you do +here?’</p> +<p>‘Wanted to see what it was like,’ returned Louisa, +shortly.</p> +<p>‘What it was like?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, father.’</p> +<p>There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and +particularly in the girl: yet, struggling through the +dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to +rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination +keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its +expression. Not with the brightness natural to cheerful +youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had +something painful in them, analogous to the changes on a blind +face groping its way.</p> +<p>She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant +day would seem to become a woman all at once. Her father +thought so as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would +have been self-willed (he thought in his eminently practical way) +but for her bringing-up.</p> +<p>‘Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it +difficult to believe that you, with your education and resources, +should have brought your sister to a scene like this.’</p> +<p><a id="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>‘I brought <i>him</i>, father,’ said Louisa, +quickly. ‘I asked him to come.’</p> +<p>‘I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to +hear it. It makes Thomas no better, and it makes you worse, +Louisa.’</p> +<p>She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down her +cheek.</p> +<p>‘You! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the +sciences is open; Thomas and you, who may be said to be replete +with facts; Thomas and you, who have been trained to mathematical +exactness; Thomas and you, here!’ cried Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘In this degraded position! I am +amazed.’</p> +<p>‘I was tired, father. I have been tired a long +time,’ said Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Tired? Of what?’ asked the astonished +father.</p> +<p>‘I don’t know of what—of everything, I +think.’</p> +<p>‘Say not another word,’ returned Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘You are childish. I will hear no +more.’ He did not speak again until they had walked +some half-a-mile in silence, when he gravely broke out with: +‘What would your best friends say, Louisa? Do you +attach no value to their good opinion? What would Mr. +Bounderby say?’ At the mention of this name, his +daughter stole a look at him, remarkable for its intense and +searching character. He saw nothing of it, for before he +looked at her, she had again cast down her eyes!</p> +<p>‘What,’ he repeated presently, ‘would Mr. +Bounderby say?’ All the way to Stone Lodge, as with +grave indignation he led the two delinquents home, he repeated at +intervals ‘What would Mr. Bounderby say?’—as if +Mr. Bounderby had been Mrs. Grundy.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MR. BOUNDERBY</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Not</span> being Mrs. Grundy, who +<i>was</i> Mr. Bounderby?</p> +<p>Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind’s +bosom friend, as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach +that spiritual relationship towards another man perfectly devoid +of sentiment. So near was Mr. Bounderby—or, if the +reader should prefer it, so far off.</p> +<p>He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what +not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic +laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to +have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a +great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and +such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes +open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading +appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to +start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a +self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through +that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance +and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of +humility.</p> +<p>A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr. +Bounderby looked older; his seven or eight and forty might have +had the seven or eight added to it again, without surprising +anybody. He had not much hair. One might have fancied +he had talked it off; and that what was left, all standing up in +disorder, was in that condition from being constantly blown about +by his windy boastfulness.</p> +<p>In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing on the +hearthrug, warming himself before the fire, Mr. Bounderby +delivered some observations to Mrs. Gradgrind on the circumstance +of its being his birthday. He stood before the fire, partly +because it was a cool spring afternoon, though the sun shone; +partly because the shade of Stone Lodge was always haunted by the +ghost of damp mortar; partly because he thus took up a commanding +position, from which to subdue Mrs. Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a +stocking, I didn’t know such a thing by name. I +passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a pigsty. +That’s the way I spent my tenth birthday. Not that a +ditch was new to me, for I was born in a ditch.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of +shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was +always taking physic without any effect, and who, whenever she +showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by +some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped +it was a dry ditch?</p> +<p>‘No! As wet as a sop. A foot of water in +it,’ said Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Enough to give a baby cold,’ Mrs. Gradgrind +considered.</p> +<p>‘Cold? I was born with inflammation of the lungs, +and of everything else, I believe, that was capable of +inflammation,’ returned Mr. Bounderby. ‘For +years, ma’am, I was one of the most miserable little +wretches ever seen. I was so sickly, that I was always +moaning and groaning. I was so ragged and dirty, that you +wouldn’t have touched me with a pair of tongs.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the most +appropriate thing her imbecility could think of doing.</p> +<p>‘How I fought through it, <i>I</i> don’t +know,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was determined, I +suppose. I have been a determined character in later life, +and I suppose I was then. Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, +anyhow, and nobody to thank for my being here, but +myself.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped that his +mother—</p> +<p>‘<i>My</i> mother? Bolted, ma’am!’ +said Bounderby.</p> +<p>Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave it +up.</p> +<p>‘My mother left me to my grandmother,’ said +Bounderby; ‘and, according to the best of my remembrance, +my grandmother was the wickedest and the worst old woman that +ever lived. If I got a little pair of shoes by any chance, +she would take ’em off and sell ’em for drink. +Why, I have known that grandmother of mine lie in her bed and +drink her four-teen glasses of liquor before +breakfast!’</p> +<p>Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no other sign of +vitality, looked (as she always did) like an indifferently +executed transparency of a small female figure, without enough +light behind it.</p> +<p>‘She kept a chandler’s shop,’ pursued +Bounderby, ‘and kept me in an egg-box. That was the +cot of <i>my</i> infancy; an old egg-box. As soon as I was +big enough to run away, of course I ran away. Then I became +a young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about +and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and +starved me. They were right; they had no business to do +anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a +pest. I know that very well.’</p> +<p>His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a +great social distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and +a pest, was only to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of +the boast.</p> +<p>‘I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. +Gradgrind. Whether I was to do it or not, ma’am, I +did it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw me out a +rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, vagabond, labourer, porter, +clerk, chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown. Those are the antecedents, and the +culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learnt his +letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was +first able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the +steeple clock of St. Giles’s Church, London, under the +direction of a drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an +incorrigible vagrant. Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of +your district schools and your model schools, and your training +schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish of schools; and Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all right, all +correct—he hadn’t such advantages—but let us +have hard-headed, solid-fisted people—the education that +made him won’t do for everybody, he knows well—such +and such his education was, however, and you may force him to +swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress +the facts of his life.’</p> +<p>Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby +of Coketown stopped. He stopped just as his eminently +practical friend, still accompanied by the two young culprits, +entered the room. His eminently practical friend, on seeing +him, stopped also, and gave Louisa a reproachful look that +plainly said, ‘Behold your Bounderby!’</p> +<p>‘Well!’ blustered Mr. Bounderby, +‘what’s the matter? What is young Thomas in the +dumps about?’</p> +<p>He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa.</p> +<p>‘We were peeping at the circus,’ muttered Louisa, +haughtily, without lifting up her eyes, ‘and father caught +us.’</p> +<p>‘And, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband in a lofty +manner, ‘I should as soon have expected to find my children +reading poetry.’</p> +<p>‘Dear me,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. +‘How can you, Louisa and Thomas! I wonder at +you. I declare you’re enough to make one regret ever +having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I +wish I hadn’t. <i>Then</i> what would you have done, +I should like to know?’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these +cogent remarks. He frowned impatiently.</p> +<p>‘As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you +couldn’t go and look at the shells and minerals and things +provided for you, instead of circuses!’ said Mrs. +Gradgrind. ‘You know, as well as I do, no young +people have circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or +attend lectures about circuses. What can you possibly want +to know of circuses then? I am sure you have enough to do, +if that’s what you want. With my head in its present +state, I couldn’t remember the mere names of half the facts +you have got to attend to.’</p> +<p>‘That’s the reason!’ pouted Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Don’t tell me that’s the reason, because it +can’t be nothing of the sort,’ said Mrs. +Gradgrind. ‘Go and be somethingological +directly.’ Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific +character, and usually dismissed her children to their studies +with this general injunction to choose their pursuit.</p> +<p>In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind’s stock of facts in general was +woefully defective; but Mr. Gradgrind in raising her to her high +matrimonial position, had been influenced by two reasons. +Firstly, she was most satisfactory as a question of figures; and, +secondly, she had ‘no nonsense’ about her. By +nonsense he meant fancy; and truly it is probable she was as free +from any alloy of that nature, as any human being not arrived at +the perfection of an absolute idiot, ever was.</p> +<p>The simple circumstance of being left alone with her husband +and Mr. Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this admirable lady +again without collision between herself and any other fact. +So, she once more died away, and nobody minded her.</p> +<p>‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair +to the fireside, ‘you are always so interested in my young +people—particularly in Louisa—that I make no apology +for saying to you, I am very much vexed by this discovery. +I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) to the +education of the reason of my family. The reason is (as you +know) the only faculty to which education should be +addressed. ‘And yet, Bounderby, it would appear from +this unexpected circumstance of to-day, though in itself a +trifling one, as if something had crept into Thomas’s and +Louisa’s minds which is—or rather, which is +not—I don’t know that I can express myself better +than by saying—which has never been intended to be +developed, and in which their reason has no part.’</p> +<p>‘There certainly is no reason in looking with interest +at a parcel of vagabonds,’ returned Bounderby. +‘When I was a vagabond myself, nobody looked with any +interest at <i>me</i>; I know that.’</p> +<p>‘Then comes the question; said the eminently practical +father, with his eyes on the fire, ‘in what has this vulgar +curiosity its rise?’</p> +<p>‘I’ll tell you in what. In idle +imagination.’</p> +<p>‘I hope not,’ said the eminently practical; +‘I confess, however, that the misgiving <i>has</i> crossed +me on my way home.’</p> +<p>‘In idle imagination, Gradgrind,’ repeated +Bounderby. ‘A very bad thing for anybody, but a +cursed bad thing for a girl like Louisa. I should ask Mrs. +Gradgrind’s pardon for strong expressions, but that she +knows very well I am not a refined character. Whoever +expects refinement in <i>me</i> will be disappointed. I +hadn’t a refined bringing up.’</p> +<p>‘Whether,’ said Gradgrind, pondering with his +hands in his pockets, and his cavernous eyes on the fire, +‘whether any instructor or servant can have suggested +anything? Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been reading +anything? Whether, in spite of all precautions, any idle +story-book can have got into the house? Because, in minds +that have been practically formed by rule and line, from the +cradle upwards, this is so curious, so +incomprehensible.’</p> +<p>‘Stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby, who all this time +had been standing, as before, on the hearth, bursting at the very +furniture of the room with explosive humility. ‘You +have one of those strollers’ children in the +school.’</p> +<p>‘Cecilia Jupe, by name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, with +something of a stricken look at his friend.</p> +<p>‘Now, stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby again. +‘How did she come there?’</p> +<p>‘Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first +time, only just now. She specially applied here at the +house to be admitted, as not regularly belonging to our town, +and—yes, you are right, Bounderby, you are +right.’</p> +<p>‘Now, stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby, once +more. ‘Louisa saw her when she came?’</p> +<p>‘Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the +application to me. But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, in +Mrs. Gradgrind’s presence.’</p> +<p>‘Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, +‘what passed?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, my poor health!’ returned Mrs. +Gradgrind. ‘The girl wanted to come to the school, +and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come to the school, and Louisa +and Thomas both said that the girl wanted to come, and that Mr. +Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it possible to +contradict them when such was the fact!’</p> +<p>‘Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!’ said Mr. +Bounderby. ‘Turn this girl to the right about, and +there’s an end of it.’</p> +<p>‘I am much of your opinion.’</p> +<p>‘Do it at once,’ said Bounderby, ‘has always +been my motto from a child. When I thought I would run away +from my egg-box and my grandmother, I did it at once. Do +you the same. Do this at once!’</p> +<p>‘Are you walking?’ asked his friend. +‘I have the father’s address. Perhaps you would +not mind walking to town with me?’</p> +<p>‘Not the least in the world,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘as long as you do it at once!’</p> +<p>So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat—he always threw it +on, as expressing a man who had been far too busily employed in +making himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his +hat—and with his hands in his pockets, sauntered out into +the hall. ‘I never wear gloves,’ it was his +custom to say. ‘I didn’t climb up the ladder in +<i>them</i>.—Shouldn’t be so high up, if I +had.’</p> +<p>Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. +Gradgrind went up-stairs for the address, he opened the door of +the children’s study and looked into that serene +floor-clothed apartment, which, notwithstanding its book-cases +and its cabinets and its variety of learned and philosophical +appliances, had much of the genial aspect of a room devoted to +hair-cutting. Louisa languidly leaned upon the window +looking out, without looking at anything, while young Thomas +stood sniffing revengefully at the fire. Adam Smith and +Malthus, two younger Gradgrinds, were out at lecture in custody; +and little Jane, after manufacturing a good deal of moist +pipe-clay on her face with slate-pencil and tears, had fallen +asleep over vulgar fractions.</p> +<p>‘It’s all right now, Louisa: it’s all right, +young Thomas,’ said Mr. Bounderby; ‘you won’t +do so any more. I’ll answer for it’s being all +over with father. Well, Louisa, that’s worth a kiss, +isn’t it?’</p> +<p>‘You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,’ returned +Louisa, when she had coldly paused, and slowly walked across the +room, and <a id="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>ungraciously raised her cheek towards him, with her face +turned away.</p> +<p>‘Always my pet; ain’t you, Louisa?’ said Mr. +Bounderby. ‘Good-bye, Louisa!’</p> +<p>He went his way, but she stood on the same spot, rubbing the +cheek he had kissed, with her handkerchief, until it was burning +red. She was still doing this, five minutes afterwards.</p> +<p>‘What are you about, Loo?’ her brother sulkily +remonstrated. ‘You’ll rub a hole in your +face.’</p> +<p>‘You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you +like, Tom. I wouldn’t cry!’</p> +<h3>CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE KEYNOTE</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Coketown</span>, to which Messrs. +Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had +no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind +herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before +pursuing our tune.</p> +<p>It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been +red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, +it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of +a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out +of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for +ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal +in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and +vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling +and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the +steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an +elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained +several large streets all very like one another, and many small +streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally +like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with +the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and +to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and +every year the counterpart of the last and the next.</p> +<p>These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from +the work by which it was sustained; against them were to be set +off, comforts of life which found their way all over the world, +and elegancies of life which made, we will not ask how much of +the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place +mentioned. The rest of its features were voluntary, and +they were these.</p> +<p>You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely +workful. If the members of a religious persuasion built a +chapel there—as the members of eighteen religious +persuasions had done—they made it a pious warehouse of red +brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamental +examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top of it. The +solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a +square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles +like florid wooden legs. All the public inscriptions in the +town were painted alike, in severe characters of black and +white. The jail might have been the infirmary, the +infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been +either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to +the contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, +fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, +fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial. The +M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of +design was all fact, and the relations between master and man +were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in +hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in +figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and +saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world +without end, Amen.</p> +<p>A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, +of course got on well? Why no, not quite well. +No? Dear me!</p> +<p>No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in +all respects like gold that had stood the fire. First, the +perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged to the eighteen +denominations? Because, whoever did, the labouring people +did not. It was very strange to walk through the streets on +a Sunday morning, and note how few of <i>them</i> the barbarous +jangling of bells that was driving the sick and nervous mad, +called away from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, +from the corners of their own streets, where they lounged +listlessly, gazing at all the church and chapel going, as at a +thing with which they had no manner of concern. Nor was it +merely the stranger who noticed this, because there was a native +organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be heard +of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning +for acts of parliament that should make these people religious by +main force. Then came the Teetotal Society, who complained +that these same people <i>would</i> get drunk, and showed in +tabular statements that they did get drunk, and proved at tea +parties that no inducement, human or Divine (except a medal), +would induce them to forego their custom of getting drunk. +Then came the chemist and druggist, with other tabular +statements, showing that when they didn’t get drunk, they +took opium. Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail, +with more tabular statements, outdoing all the previous tabular +statements, and showing that the same people <i>would</i> resort +to low haunts, hidden from the public eye, where they heard low +singing and saw low dancing, and mayhap joined in it; and where +A. B., aged twenty-four next birthday, and committed for eighteen +months’ solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever +shown himself particularly worthy of belief) his ruin began, as +he was perfectly sure and confident that otherwise he would have +been a tip-top moral specimen. Then came Mr. Gradgrind and +Mr. Bounderby, the two gentlemen at this present moment walking +through Coketown, and both eminently practical, who could, on +occasion, furnish more tabular statements derived from their own +personal experience, and illustrated by cases they had known and +seen, from which it clearly appeared—in short, it was the +only clear thing in the case—that these same people were a +bad lot altogether, gentlemen; that do what you would for them +they were never thankful for it, gentlemen; that they were +restless, gentlemen; that they never knew what they wanted; that +they lived upon the best, and bought fresh butter; and insisted +on Mocha coffee, and rejected all but prime parts of meat, and +yet were eternally dissatisfied and unmanageable. In short, +it was the moral of the old nursery fable:</p> +<blockquote><p>There was an old woman, and what do you think?<br> +She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink;<br> +Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet,<br> +And yet this old woman would <span class="GutSmall">NEVER</span> +be quiet.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between +the case of the Coketown population and the case of the little +Gradgrinds? Surely, none of us in our sober senses and +acquainted with figures, are to be told at this time of day, that +one of the foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown +working-people had been for scores of years, deliberately set at +nought? That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be +brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in +convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they worked long +and monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical +relief—some relaxation, encouraging good humour and good +spirits, and giving them a vent—some recognized holiday, +though it were but for an honest dance to a stirring band of +music—some occasional light pie in which even +M’Choakumchild had no finger—which craving must and +would be satisfied aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, +until the laws of the Creation were repealed?</p> +<p>‘This man lives at Pod’s End, and I don’t +quite know Pod’s End,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. +‘Which is it, Bounderby?’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, but knew no +more respecting it. So they stopped for a moment, looking +about.</p> +<p>Almost as they did so, there came running round the corner of +the street at a quick pace and with a frightened look, a girl +whom Mr. Gradgrind recognized. ‘Halloa!’ said +he. ‘Stop! Where are you going! +Stop!’ Girl number twenty stopped then, palpitating, +and made him a curtsey.</p> +<p>‘Why are you tearing about the streets,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, ‘in this improper manner?’</p> +<p>‘I was—I was run after, sir,’ the girl +panted, ‘and I wanted to get away.’</p> +<p>‘Run after?’ repeated Mr. Gradgrind. +‘Who would run after <i>you</i>?’</p> +<p>The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for her, +by the colourless boy, Bitzer, who came round the corner with +such blind speed and so little anticipating a stoppage on the +pavement, that he brought himself up against Mr. +Gradgrind’s waistcoat and rebounded into the road.</p> +<p>‘What do you mean, boy?’ said Mr. Gradgrind. +‘What are you doing? How dare you dash +against—everybody—in this manner?’ Bitzer +picked up his cap, which the concussion had knocked off; and +backing, and knuckling his forehead, pleaded that it was an +accident.</p> +<p>‘Was this boy running after you, Jupe?’ asked Mr. +Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir,’ said the girl reluctantly.</p> +<p>‘No, I wasn’t, sir!’ cried Bitzer. +‘Not till she run away from me. But the horse-riders +never mind what they say, sir; they’re famous for it. +You know the horse-riders are famous for never minding what they +say,’ addressing Sissy. ‘It’s as well +known in the town as—please, sir, as the multiplication +table isn’t known to the horse-riders.’ Bitzer +tried Mr. Bounderby with this.</p> +<p>‘He frightened me so,’ said the girl, ‘with +his cruel faces!’</p> +<p>‘Oh!’ cried Bitzer. ‘Oh! +An’t you one of the rest! An’t you a +horse-rider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her +if she would know how to define a horse to-morrow, and offered to +tell her again, and she ran away, and I ran after her, sir, that +she might know how to answer when she was asked. You +wouldn’t have thought of saying such mischief if you +hadn’t been a horse-rider?’</p> +<p>‘Her calling seems to be pretty well known among +’em,’ observed Mr. Bounderby. +‘You’d have had the whole school peeping in a row, in +a week.’</p> +<p>‘Truly, I think so,’ returned his friend. +‘Bitzer, turn you about and take yourself home. Jupe, stay +here a moment. Let me hear of your running in this manner +any more, boy, and you will hear of me through the master of the +school. You understand what I mean. Go +along.’</p> +<p>The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead +again, glanced at Sissy, turned about, and retreated.</p> +<p>‘Now, girl,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘take this +gentleman and me to your father’s; we are going +there. What have you got in that bottle you are +carrying?’</p> +<p>‘Gin,’ said Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Dear, no, sir! It’s the nine +oils.’</p> +<p>‘The what?’ cried Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘The nine oils, sir, to rub father with.’</p> +<p>‘Then,’ said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud short +laugh, ‘what the devil do you rub your father with nine +oils for?’</p> +<p>‘It’s what our people aways use, sir, when they +get any hurts in the ring,’ replied the girl, looking over +her shoulder, to assure herself that her pursuer was gone. +‘They bruise themselves very bad sometimes.’</p> +<p>‘Serve ’em right,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘for being idle.’ She glanced up at his face, +with mingled astonishment and dread.</p> +<p>‘By George!’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘when I was +four or five years younger than you, I had worse bruises upon me +than ten oils, twenty oils, forty oils, would have rubbed +off. I didn’t get ’em by posture-making, but by +being banged about. There was no rope-dancing for me; I +danced on the bare ground and was larruped with the +rope.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so rough a +man as Mr. Bounderby. His character was not unkind, all +things considered; it might have been a very kind one indeed, if +he had only made some round mistake in the arithmetic that +balanced it, years ago. He said, in what he meant for a +reassuring tone, as they turned down a narrow road, ‘And +this is Pod’s End; is it, Jupe?’</p> +<p>‘This is it, sir, and—if you wouldn’t mind, +sir—this is the house.’</p> +<p>She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little +public-house, with dim red lights in it. As haggard and as +shabby, as if, for want of custom, it had itself taken to +drinking, and had gone the way all drunkards go, and was very +near the end of it.</p> +<p>‘It’s only crossing the bar, sir, and up the +stairs, if you wouldn’t mind, and waiting there for a +moment till I get a candle. If you should hear a dog, sir, +it’s only Merrylegs, and he only barks.’</p> +<p>‘Merrylegs and nine oils, eh!’ said Mr. Bounderby, +entering last with his metallic laugh. ‘Pretty well +this, for a self-made man!’</p> +<h3><a id="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">SLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIP</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> name of the public-house was +the Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs might +have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse +upon the sign-board, the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in +Roman letters. Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing +scroll, the painter had touched off the lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>Good malt makes good beer,<br> +Walk in, and they’ll draw it here;<br> +Good wine makes good brandy,<br> +Give us a call, and you’ll find it handy.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, +was another Pegasus—a theatrical one—with real gauze +let in for his wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and his +ethereal harness made of red silk.</p> +<p>As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it +had not grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. +Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby received no offence from these +idealities. They followed the girl up some steep +corner-stairs without meeting any one, and stopped in the dark +while she went on for a candle. They expected every moment +to hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly trained performing +dog had not barked when the girl and the candle appeared +together.</p> +<p>‘Father is not in our room, sir,’ she said, with a +face of great surprise. ‘If you wouldn’t mind +walking in, I’ll find him directly.’ They +walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away +with a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily furnished +room, with a bed in it. The white night-cap, embellished +with two peacock’s feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in +which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied +performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung +upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token +of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to +Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal +who went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut out of +it, for any sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the +Pegasus’s Arms.</p> +<p>They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as +Sissy went from one to another in quest of her father; and +presently they heard voices expressing surprise. She came +bounding down again in a great hurry, opened a battered and mangy +old hair trunk, found it empty, and looked round with her hands +clasped and her face full of terror.</p> +<p>‘Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I +don’t know why he should go there, but he must be there; +I’ll bring him in a minute!’ She was gone +directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair +streaming behind her.</p> +<p>‘What does she mean!’ said Mr. Gradgrind. +‘Back in a minute? It’s more than a mile +off.’</p> +<p>Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the +door, and introducing himself with the words, ‘By your +leaves, gentlemen!’ walked in with his hands in his +pockets. His face, close-shaven, thin, and sallow, was +shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, brushed into a roll all +round his head, and parted up the centre. His legs were +very robust, but shorter than legs of good proportions should +have been. His chest and back were as much too broad, as +his legs were too short. He was dressed in a Newmarket coat +and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of +lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, and +sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded +of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and +the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. +This gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. +B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as +the Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies; in which +popular performance, a diminutive boy with an old face, who now +accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried upside +down over his father’s shoulder, by one foot, and held by +the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his +father’s hand, according to the violent paternal manner in +which wild huntsmen may be observed to fondle their +offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, white +bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so +pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the +maternal part of the spectators; but in private, where his +characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely +gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy.</p> +<p>‘By your leaves, gentlemen,’ said Mr. E. W. B. +Childers, glancing round the room. ‘It was you, I +believe, that were wishing to see Jupe!’</p> +<p>‘It was,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘His +daughter has gone to fetch him, but I can’t wait; +therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with +you.’</p> +<p>‘You see, my friend,’ Mr. Bounderby put in, +‘we are the kind of people who know the value of time, and +you are the kind of people who don’t know the value of +time.’</p> +<p>‘I have not,’ retorted Mr. Childers, after +surveying him from head to foot, ‘the honour of knowing +<i>you</i>,—but if you mean that you can make more money of +your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your +appearance, that you are about right.’</p> +<p>‘And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I +should think,’ said Cupid.</p> +<p>‘Kidderminster, stow that!’ said Mr. +Childers. (Master Kidderminster was Cupid’s mortal +name.)</p> +<p>‘What does he come here cheeking us for, then?’ +cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible +temperament. ‘If you want to cheek us, pay your ochre +at the doors and take it out.’</p> +<p>‘Kidderminster,’ said Mr. Childers, raising his +voice, ‘stow that!—Sir,’ to Mr. Gradgrind, +‘I was addressing myself to you. You may or you may +not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the +audience), that Jupe has missed his tip very often, +lately.’</p> +<p>‘Has—what has he missed?’ asked Mr. +Gradgrind, glancing at the potent Bounderby for assistance.</p> +<p>‘Missed his tip.’</p> +<p>‘Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never +done ’em once,’ said Master Kidderminster. +‘Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was loose in his +ponging.’</p> +<p>‘Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in +his leaps and bad in his tumbling,’ Mr. Childers +interpreted.</p> +<p>‘Oh!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is tip, is +it?’</p> +<p>‘In a general way that’s missing his tip,’ +Mr. E. W. B. Childers answered.</p> +<p>‘Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, +and Ponging, eh!’ ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of +laughs. ‘Queer sort of company, too, for a man who +has raised himself!’</p> +<p>‘Lower yourself, then,’ retorted Cupid. +‘Oh Lord! if you’ve raised yourself so high as all +that comes to, let yourself down a bit.’</p> +<p>‘This is a very obtrusive lad!’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on him.</p> +<p>‘We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you, if +we had known you were coming,’ retorted Master +Kidderminster, nothing abashed. ‘It’s a pity +you don’t have a bespeak, being so particular. +You’re on the Tight-Jeff, ain’t you?’</p> +<p>‘What does this unmannerly boy mean,’ asked Mr. +Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort of desperation, ‘by +Tight-Jeff?’</p> +<p>‘There! Get out, get out!’ said Mr. +Childers, thrusting his young friend from the room, rather in the +prairie manner. ‘Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, it +don’t much signify: it’s only tight-rope and +slack-rope. You were going to give me a message for +Jupe?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I was.’</p> +<p>‘Then,’ continued Mr. Childers, quickly, ‘my +opinion is, he will never receive it. Do you know much of +him?’</p> +<p>‘I never saw the man in my life.’</p> +<p>‘I doubt if you ever <i>will</i> see him now. +It’s pretty plain to me, he’s off.’</p> +<p>‘Do you mean that he has deserted his +daughter?’</p> +<p>‘Ay! I mean,’ said Mr. Childers, with a nod, +‘that he has cut. He was goosed last night, he was +goosed the night before last, he was goosed to-day. He has +lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he can’t +stand it.’</p> +<p>‘Why has he been—so very much—Goosed?’ +asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the word out of himself, with great +solemnity and reluctance.</p> +<p>‘His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used +up,’ said Childers. ‘He has his points as a +Cackler still, but he can’t get a living out of +<i>them</i>.’</p> +<p>‘A Cackler!’ Bounderby repeated. ‘Here +we go again!’</p> +<p>‘A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,’ +said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, superciliously throwing the +interpretation over his shoulder, and accompanying it with a +shake of his long hair—which all shook at once. +‘Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that +man deeper, to know that his daughter knew of his being goosed, +than to go through with it.’</p> +<p>‘Good!’ interrupted Mr. Bounderby. +‘This is good, Gradgrind! A man so fond of his +daughter, that he runs away from her! This is devilish +good! Ha! ha! Now, I’ll tell you what, young +man. I haven’t always occupied my present station of +life. I know what these things are. You may be +astonished to hear it, but my mother—ran away from +<i>me</i>.’</p> +<p>E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all +astonished to hear it.</p> +<p>‘Very well,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was +born in a ditch, and my mother ran away from me. Do I +excuse her for it? No. Have I ever excused her for +it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call +her probably the very worst woman that ever lived in the world, +except my drunken grandmother. There’s no family +pride about me, there’s no imaginative sentimental humbug +about me. I call a spade a spade; and I call the mother of +Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or any favour, +what I should call her if she had been the mother of Dick Jones +of Wapping. So, with this man. He is a runaway rogue +and a vagabond, that’s what he is, in English.’</p> +<p>‘It’s all the same to me what he is or what he is +not, whether in English or whether in French,’ retorted Mr. +E. W. B. Childers, facing about. ‘I am telling your +friend what’s the fact; if you don’t like to hear it, +you can avail yourself of the open air. You give it mouth +enough, you do; but give it mouth in your own building at +least,’ remonstrated E. W. B. with stern irony. +‘Don’t give it mouth in this building, till +you’re called upon. You have got some building of +your own I dare say, now?’</p> +<p>‘Perhaps so,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his +money and laughing.</p> +<p>‘Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if +you please?’ said Childers. ‘Because this +isn’t a strong building, and too much of you might bring it +down!’</p> +<p>Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from +him, as from a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour +ago, and then was seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his +eyes, and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief under his arm. +She will never believe it of him, but he has cut away and left +her.’</p> +<p>‘Pray,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘why will she +never believe it of him?’</p> +<p>‘Because those two were one. Because they were +never asunder. Because, up to this time, he seemed to dote +upon her,’ said Childers, taking a step or two to look into +the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and Master Kidderminster +walked in a curious manner; with their legs wider apart than the +general run of men, and with a very knowing assumption of being +stiff in the knees. This walk was common to all the male +members of Sleary’s company, and was understood to express, +that they were always on horseback.</p> +<p>‘Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed +her,’ said Childers, giving his hair another shake, as he +looked up from the empty box. ‘Now, he leaves her +without anything to take to.’</p> +<p>‘It is creditable to you, who have never been +apprenticed, to express that opinion,’ returned Mr. +Gradgrind, approvingly.</p> +<p>‘<i>I</i> never apprenticed? I was apprenticed +when I was seven year old.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! Indeed?’ said Mr. Gradgrind, rather +resentfully, as having been defrauded of his good opinion. +‘I was not aware of its being the custom to apprentice +young persons to—’</p> +<p>‘Idleness,’ Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud +laugh. ‘No, by the Lord Harry! Nor +I!’</p> +<p>‘Her father always had it in his head,’ resumed +Childers, feigning unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby’s +existence, ‘that she was to be taught the deuce-and-all of +education. How it got into his head, I can’t say; I +can only say that it never got out. He has been picking up +a bit of reading for her, here—and a bit of writing for +her, there—and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere +else—these seven years.’</p> +<p>Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his +pockets, stroked his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal +of doubt and a little hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the +first he had sought to conciliate that gentleman, for the sake of +the deserted girl.</p> +<p>‘When Sissy got into the school here,’ he pursued, +‘her father was as pleased as Punch. I couldn’t +altogether make out why, myself, as we were not stationary here, +being but comers and goers anywhere. I suppose, however, he +had this move in his mind—he was always +half-cracked—and then considered her provided for. If +you should happen to have looked in to-night, for the purpose of +telling him that you were going to do her any little +service,’ said Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and +repeating his look, ‘it would be very fortunate and +well-timed; very fortunate and well-timed.’</p> +<p>‘On the contrary,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind. +‘I came to tell him that her connections made her not an +object for the school, and that she must not attend any +more. Still, if her father really has left her, without any +connivance on her part—Bounderby, let me have a word with +you.’</p> +<p>Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his +equestrian walk, to the landing outside the door, and there stood +stroking his face, and softly whistling. While thus +engaged, he overheard such phrases in Mr. Bounderby’s voice +as ‘No. <i>I</i> say no. I advise you +not. I say by no means.’ While, from Mr. +Gradgrind, he heard in his much lower tone the words, ‘But +even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which has been +the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in. +Think of it, Bounderby, in that point of view.’</p> +<p>Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary’s company +gradually gathered together from the upper regions, where they +were quartered, and, from standing about, talking in low voices +to one another and to Mr. Childers, gradually insinuated +themselves and him into the room. There were two or three +handsome young women among them, with their two or three +husbands, and their two or three mothers, and their eight or nine +little children, who did the fairy business when required. +The father of one of the families was in the habit of balancing +the father of another of the families on the top of a great pole; +the father of a third family often made a pyramid of both those +fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the apex, and himself for +the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling casks, stand +upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand-basins, ride +upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing. +All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire and +the tight-rope, and perform rapid acts on bare-backed steeds; +none of them were at all particular in respect of showing their +legs; and one of them, alone in a Greek chariot, drove six in +hand into every town they came to. They all assumed to be +mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their +private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic +arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company +would have produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet +there was a remarkable gentleness and childishness about these +people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and +an untiring readiness to help and pity one another, deserving +often of as much respect, and always of as much generous +construction, as the every-day virtues of any class of people in +the world.</p> +<p>Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already +mentioned, with one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it +can be called so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of +bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled head which was never +sober and never drunk.</p> +<p>‘Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with +asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for the +letter s, ‘Your thervant! Thith ith a bad piethe of +bithnith, thith ith. You’ve heard of my Clown and +hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?’</p> +<p>He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered +‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Well, Thquire,’ he returned, taking off his hat, +and rubbing the lining with his pocket-handkerchief, which he +kept inside for the purpose. ‘Ith it your intenthion +to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?’</p> +<p>‘I shall have something to propose to her when she comes +back,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get +rid of the child, any more than I want to thtand in her +way. I’m willing to take her prentith, though at her +age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and +not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me; but if +you’d been chilled and heated, heated and chilled, chilled +and heated in the ring when you wath young, ath often ath I have +been, <i>your</i> voithe wouldn’t have lathted out, +Thquire, no more than mine.’</p> +<p>‘I dare say not,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall +it be Therry? Give it a name, Thquire!’ said Mr. +Sleary, with hospitable ease.</p> +<p>‘Nothing for me, I thank you,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your +friend thay? If you haven’t took your feed yet, have +a glath of bitterth.’</p> +<p>Here his daughter Josephine—a pretty fair-haired girl of +eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had +made a will at twelve, which she always carried about with her, +expressive of her dying desire to be drawn to the grave by the +two piebald ponies—cried, ‘Father, hush! she has come +back!’ Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as +she had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, +and saw their looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a +most deplorable cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the most +accomplished tight-rope lady (herself in the family-way), who +knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to weep over her.</p> +<p>‘Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,’ +said Sleary.</p> +<p>‘O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you +gone? You are gone to try to do me some good, I know! +You are gone away for my sake, I am sure! And how miserable +and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor father, until you +come back!’ It was so pathetic to hear her saying +many things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her +arms stretched out as if she were trying to stop his departing +shadow and embrace it, that no one spoke a word until Mr. +Bounderby (growing impatient) took the case in hand.</p> +<p>‘Now, good people all,’ said he, ‘this is +wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the +fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been +run away from, myself. Here, what’s your name! +Your father has absconded—deserted you—and you +mustn’t expect to see him again as long as you +live.’</p> +<p>They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in +that advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of +being impressed by the speaker’s strong common sense, they +took it in extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered +‘Shame!’ and the women ‘Brute!’ and +Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following hint, apart to +Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, +my opinion ith that you had better cut it thort, and drop +it. They’re a very good natur’d people, my +people, but they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their +movementh; and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m +damned if I don’t believe they’ll pith you out +o’ winder.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. +Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently practical exposition +of the subject.</p> +<p>‘It is of no moment,’ said he, ‘whether this +person is to be expected back at any time, or the contrary. +He is gone away, and there is no present expectation of his +return. That, I believe, is agreed on all hands.’</p> +<p>‘Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to +that!’ From Sleary.</p> +<p>‘Well then. I, who came here to inform the father +of the poor girl, Jupe, that she could not be received at the +school any more, in consequence of there being practical +objections, into which I need not enter, to the reception there +of the children of persons so employed, am prepared in these +altered circumstances to make a proposal. I am willing to +take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for +you. The only condition (over and above your good +behaviour) I make is, that you decide now, at once, whether to +accompany me or remain here. Also, that if you accompany me +now, it is understood that you communicate no more with any of +your friends who are here present. These observations +comprise the whole of the case.’</p> +<p>‘At the thame time,’ said Sleary, ‘I mutht +put in my word, Thquire, tho that both thides of the banner may +be equally theen. If you like, Thethilia, to be prentitht, +you know the natur of the work and you know your +companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you’re a +lying at prethent, would be a mother to you, and Joth’phine +would be a thithter to you. I don’t pretend to be of +the angel breed myself, and I don’t thay but what, when you +mith’d your tip, you’d find me cut up rough, and +thwear an oath or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, +ith, that good tempered or bad tempered, I never did a horthe a +injury yet, no more than thwearing at him went, and that I +don’t expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of life, +with a rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, Thquire, and +I have thed my thay.’</p> +<p>The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, +who received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then +remarked:</p> +<p>‘The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the +way of influencing your decision, is, that it is highly desirable +to have a sound practical education, and that even your father +himself (from what I understand) appears, on your behalf, to have +known and felt that much.’</p> +<p>The last words had a visible effect upon her. She +stopped in her wild crying, a little detached herself from Emma +Gordon, and turned her face full upon her patron. The whole +company perceived the force of the change, and drew a long breath +together, that plainly said, ‘she will go!’</p> +<p>‘Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,’ Mr. +Gradgrind cautioned her; ‘I say no more. Be sure you +know your own mind!’</p> +<p>‘When father comes back,’ cried the girl, bursting +into tears again after a minute’s silence, ‘how will +he ever find me if I go away!’</p> +<p>‘You may be quite at ease,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +calmly; he worked out the whole matter like a sum: ‘you may +be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score. In such a case, your +father, I apprehend, must find out Mr.—’</p> +<p>‘Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not +athamed of it. Known all over England, and alwayth paythe +ith way.’</p> +<p>‘Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know +where you went. I should have no power of keeping you +against his wish, and he would have no difficulty, at any time, +in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown. I am well +known.’</p> +<p>‘Well known,’ assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his +loose eye. ‘You’re one of the thort, Thquire, +that keepth a prethiouth thight of money out of the houthe. +But never mind that at prethent.’</p> +<p>There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing +with her hands before her face, ‘Oh, give me my clothes, +give me my clothes, and let me go away before I break my +heart!’</p> +<p>The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes +together—it was soon done, for they were not many—and +to pack them in a basket which had often travelled with +them. Sissy sat all the time upon the ground, still +sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Gradgrind and his +friend Bounderby stood near the door, ready to take her +away. Mr. Sleary stood in the middle of the room, with the +male members of the company about him, exactly as he would have +stood in the centre of the ring during his daughter +Josephine’s performance. He wanted nothing but his +whip.</p> +<p>The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, +and smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. Then they +pressed about her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, +kissing and embracing her: and brought the children to take leave +of her; and were a tender-hearted, simple, foolish set of women +altogether.</p> +<p>‘Now, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘If +you are quite determined, come!’</p> +<p>But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the +company yet, and every one of them had to unfold his arms (for +they all assumed the professional attitude when they found +themselves near Sleary), and give her a parting kiss—Master +Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature there was an +original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to have +harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. +Sleary was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide +he took her by both her hands, and would have sprung her up and +down, after the riding-master manner of congratulating young +ladies on their dismounting from a rapid act; but there was no +rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before him crying.</p> +<p>‘Good-bye, my dear!’ said Sleary. +‘You’ll make your fortun, I hope, and none of our +poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll pound it. I +with your father hadn’t taken hith dog with him; ith a +ill-conwenienth to have the dog out of the billth. But on +thecond thoughth, he wouldn’t have performed without hith +mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!’</p> +<p>With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, +surveyed his company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his +head, and handed her to Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse.</p> +<p>‘There the ith, Thquire,’ he said, sweeping her +with a professional glance as if she were being adjusted in her +seat, ‘and the’ll do you juthtithe. Good-bye, +Thethilia!’</p> +<p>‘Good-bye, Cecilia!’ ‘Good-bye, +Sissy!’ ‘God bless you, dear!’ In a +variety of voices from all the room.</p> +<p>But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine +oils in her bosom, and he now interposed with ‘Leave the +bottle, my dear; ith large to carry; it will be of no uthe to you +now. Give it to me!’</p> +<p>‘No, no!’ she said, in another burst of +tears. ‘Oh, no! Pray let me keep it for father +till he comes back! He will want it when he comes +back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me +for it. I must keep it for him, if you please!’</p> +<p>‘Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, +Thquire!) Farewell, Thethilia! My latht wordth to you +ith thith, Thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient +to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, when you’re +grown up and married and well off, you come upon any +horthe-riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be +croth with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might +do wurth. People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, +thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, +by so much talking; ‘they can’t be alwayth a working, +nor yet they can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the +betht of uth; not the wurtht. I’ve got my living out +of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I conthider that I +lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to you, +Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!’</p> +<p>The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs +and the fixed eye of Philosophy—and its rolling eye, +too—soon lost the three figures and the basket in the +darkness of the street.</p> +<h3><a id="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>CHAPTER VII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MRS. SPARSIT</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Bounderby</span> being a bachelor, an +elderly lady presided over his establishment, in consideration of +a certain annual stipend. Mrs. Sparsit was this +lady’s name; and she was a prominent figure in attendance +on Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with +the Bully of humility inside.</p> +<p>For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was +highly connected. She had a great aunt living in these very +times called Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom +she was the relict, had been by the mother’s side what Mrs. +Sparsit still called ‘a Powler.’ Strangers of +limited information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed +not to know what a Powler was, and even to appear uncertain +whether it might be a business, or a political party, or a +profession of faith. The better class of minds, however, +did not need to be informed that the Powlers were an ancient +stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back that it +was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves—which +they had rather frequently done, as respected horse-flesh, +blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent +Debtors’ Court.</p> +<p>The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother’s side a +Powler, married this lady, being by the father’s side a +Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with +an inordinate appetite for butcher’s meat, and a mysterious +leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) +contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, +and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on +two long slim props, and surmounted by no head worth +mentioning. He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but +owed it all before he came into it, and spent it twice over +immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at twenty-four +(the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he did +not leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after +the honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved +lady, fifteen years older than he, fell presently at deadly feud +with her only relative, Lady Scadgers; and, partly to spite her +ladyship, and partly to maintain herself, went out at a +salary. And here she was now, in her elderly days, with the +Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows which had +captivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bounderby’s tea as he took +his breakfast.</p> +<p>If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive +Princess whom he took about as a feature in his +state-processions, he could not have made a greater flourish with +her than he habitually did. Just as it belonged to his +boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to +it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the measure that he +would not allow his own youth to have been attended by a single +favourable circumstance, he brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s +juvenile career with every possible advantage, and showered +waggon-loads of early roses all over that lady’s +path. ‘And yet, sir,’ he would say, ‘how +does it turn out after all? Why here she is at a hundred a +year (I give her a hundred, which she is pleased to term +handsome), keeping the house of Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown!’</p> +<p>Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third +parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with +considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating +attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises +but stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral +infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough +elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in +quite a rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be +the Royal arms, the Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas +Corpus, the Bill of Rights, An Englishman’s house is his +castle, Church and State, and God save the Queen, all put +together. And as often (and it was very often) as an orator +of this kind brought into his peroration,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Princes and lords may flourish or may +fade,<br> +A breath can make them, as a breath has made,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>—it was, for certain, more or less understood among the +company that he had heard of Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you are +unusually slow, sir, with your breakfast this morning.’</p> +<p>‘Why, ma’am,’ he returned, ‘I am +thinking about Tom Gradgrind’s whim;’ Tom Gradgrind, +for a bluff independent manner of speaking—as if somebody +were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense sums to say +Thomas, and he wouldn’t; ‘Tom Gradgrind’s whim, +ma’am, of bringing up the tumbling-girl.’</p> +<p>‘The girl is now waiting to know,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, ‘whether she is to go straight to the school, or +up to the Lodge.’</p> +<p>‘She must wait, ma’am,’ answered Bounderby, +‘till I know myself. We shall have Tom Gradgrind down +here presently, I suppose. If he should wish her to remain +here a day or two longer, of course she can, +ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. +Bounderby.’</p> +<p>‘I told him I would give her a shake-down here, last +night, in order that he might sleep on it before he decided to +let her have any association with Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful of +you!’ Mrs. Sparsit’s Coriolanian nose underwent +a slight expansion of the nostrils, and her black eyebrows +contracted as she took a sip of tea.</p> +<p>‘It’s tolerably clear to <i>me</i>,’ said +Bounderby, ‘that the little puss can get small good out of +such companionship.’</p> +<p>‘Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. +Bounderby?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am, I’m speaking of +Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘Your observation being limited to “little +puss,”’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and there being two +little girls in question, I did not know which might be indicated +by that expression.’</p> +<p>‘Louisa,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby. +‘Louisa, Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘You are quite another father to Louisa, +sir.’ Mrs. Sparsit took a little more tea; and, as +she bent her again contracted eyebrows over her steaming cup, +rather looked as if her classical countenance were invoking the +infernal gods.</p> +<p>‘If you had said I was another father to Tom—young +Tom, I mean, not my friend Tom Gradgrind—you might have +been nearer the mark. I am going to take young Tom into my +office. Going to have him under my wing, +ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, +sir?’ Mrs. Sparsit’s ‘sir,’ in +addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting +consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.</p> +<p>‘I’m not going to take him at once; he is to +finish his educational cramming before then,’ said +Bounderby. ‘By the Lord Harry, he’ll have +enough of it, first and last! He’d open his eyes, +that boy would, if he knew how empty of learning <i>my</i> young +maw was, at his time of life.’ Which, by the by, he +probably did know, for he had heard of it often enough. +‘But it’s extraordinary the difficulty I have on +scores of such subjects, in speaking to any one on equal +terms. Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this +morning about tumblers. Why, what do <i>you</i> know about +tumblers? At the time when, to have been a tumbler in the +mud of the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in +the lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You were +coming out of the Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and +jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn’t a penny to buy +a link to light you.’</p> +<p>‘I certainly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a +dignity serenely mournful, ‘was familiar with the Italian +Opera at a very early age.’</p> +<p>‘Egad, ma’am, so was I,’ said Bounderby, +‘—with the wrong side of it. A hard bed the +pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure you. People +like you, ma’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down +feathers, have no idea <i>how</i> hard a paving-stone is, without +trying it. No, no, it’s of no use my talking to +<i>you</i> about tumblers. I should speak of foreign +dancers, and the West End of London, and May Fair, and lords and +ladies and honourables.’</p> +<p>‘I trust, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent +resignation, ‘it is not necessary that you should do +anything of that kind. I hope I have learnt how to +accommodate myself to the changes of life. If I have +acquired an interest in hearing of your instructive experiences, +and can scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit for that, +since I believe it is a general sentiment.’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am,’ said her patron, +‘perhaps some people may be pleased to say that they do +like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what Josiah Bounderby, +of Coketown, has gone through. But you must confess that +you were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, +ma’am, you know you were born in the lap of +luxury.’</p> +<p>‘I do not, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit with a +shake of her head, ‘deny it.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and stand with +his back to the fire, looking at her; she was such an enhancement +of his position.</p> +<p>‘And you were in crack society. Devilish high +society,’ he said, warming his legs.</p> +<p>‘It is true, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an +affectation of humility the very opposite of his, and therefore +in no danger of jostling it.</p> +<p>‘You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of +it,’ said Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of +social widowhood upon her. ‘It is unquestionably +true.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally +embraced his legs in his great satisfaction and laughed +aloud. Mr. and Miss Gradgrind being then announced, he +received the former with a shake of the hand, and the latter with +a kiss.</p> +<p>‘Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?’ asked Mr. +Gradgrind.</p> +<p>Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, +she curtseyed to Mr. Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, +and also to Louisa; but in her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. +Sparsit. Observing this, the blustrous Bounderby had the +following remarks to make:</p> +<p>‘Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that +lady by the teapot, is Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as +mistress of this house, and she is a highly connected lady. +Consequently, if ever you come again into any room in this house, +you will make a short stay in it if you don’t behave +towards that lady in your most respectful manner. Now, I +don’t care a button what you do to <i>me</i>, because I +don’t affect to be anybody. So far from having high +connections I have no connections at all, and I come of the scum +of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care what you do; +and you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall +not come here.’</p> +<p>‘I hope, Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a +conciliatory voice, ‘that this was merely an +oversight.’</p> +<p>‘My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,’ +said Bounderby, ‘that this was merely an oversight. +Very likely. However, as you are aware, ma’am, I +don’t allow of even oversights towards you.’</p> +<p>‘You are very good indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. +Sparsit, shaking her head with her State humility. +‘It is not worth speaking of.’</p> +<p>Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself +with tears in her eyes, was now waved over by the master of the +house to Mr. Gradgrind. She stood looking intently at him, +and Louisa stood coldly by, with her eyes upon the ground, while +he proceeded thus:</p> +<p>‘Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; +and, when you are not in attendance at the school, to employ you +about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an invalid. I have +explained to Miss Louisa—this is Miss Louisa—the +miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to +expressly understand that the whole of that subject is past, and +is not to be referred to any more. From this time you begin +your history. You are, at present, ignorant, I +know.’</p> +<p><a id="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>‘Yes, sir, very,’ she answered, +curtseying.</p> +<p>‘I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be +strictly educated; and you will be a living proof to all who come +into communication with you, of the advantages of the training +you will receive. You will be reclaimed and formed. +You have been in the habit now of reading to your father, and +those people I found you among, I dare say?’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him before he said so, and +dropping his voice.</p> +<p>‘Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I +mean to father, when Merrylegs was always there.’</p> +<p>‘Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +with a passing frown. ‘I don’t ask about +him. I understand you to have been in the habit of reading +to your father?’</p> +<p>‘O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the +happiest—O, of all the happy times we had together, +sir!’</p> +<p>It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked +at her.</p> +<p>‘And what,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower +voice, ‘did you read to your father, Jupe?’</p> +<p>‘About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the +Hunchback, and the Genies,’ she sobbed out; ‘and +about—’</p> +<p>‘Hush!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is +enough. Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense +any more. Bounderby, this is a case for rigid training, and +I shall observe it with interest.’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ returned Mr. Bounderby, ‘I have +given you my opinion already, and I shouldn’t do as you +do. But, very well, very well. Since you are bent +upon it, <i>very</i> well!’</p> +<p>So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with +them to Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, +good or bad. And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily +pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got behind her eyebrows and +meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the evening.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">NEVER WONDER</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Let</span> us strike the key-note again, +before pursuing the tune.</p> +<p>When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been +overheard to begin a conversation with her brother one day, by +saying ‘Tom, I wonder’—upon which Mr. +Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the +light and said, ‘Louisa, never wonder!’</p> +<p>Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of +educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the +sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of +addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, settle +everything somehow, and never wonder. Bring to me, says +M’Choakumchild, yonder baby just able to walk, and I will +engage that it shall never wonder.</p> +<p>Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there +happened to be in Coketown a considerable population of babies +who had been walking against time towards the infinite world, +twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and more. These +portentous infants being alarming creatures to stalk about in any +human society, the eighteen denominations incessantly scratched +one another’s faces and pulled one another’s hair by +way of agreeing on the steps to be taken for their +improvement—which they never did; a surprising +circumstance, when the happy adaptation of the means to the end +is considered. Still, although they differed in every other +particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially +inconceivable), they were pretty well united on the point that +these unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body number +one, said they must take everything on trust. Body number +two, said they must take everything on political economy. +Body number three, wrote leaden little books for them, showing +how the good grown-up baby invariably got to the Savings-bank, +and the bad grown-up baby invariably got transported. Body +number four, under dreary pretences of being droll (when it was +very melancholy indeed), made the shallowest pretences of +concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into which it was the duty of +these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. But, all the +bodies agreed that they were never to wonder.</p> +<p>There was a library in Coketown, to which general access was +easy. Mr. Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what +the people read in this library: a point whereon little rivers of +tabular statements periodically flowed into the howling ocean of +tabular statements, which no diver ever got to any depth in and +came up sane. It was a disheartening circumstance, but a +melancholy fact, that even these readers persisted in +wondering. They wondered about human nature, human +passions, human hopes and fears, the struggles, triumphs and +defeats, the cares and joys and sorrows, the lives and deaths of +common men and women! They sometimes, after fifteen +hours’ work, sat down to read mere fables about men and +women, more or less like themselves, and about children, more or +less like their own. They took De Foe to their bosoms, +instead of Euclid, and seemed to be on the whole more comforted +by Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mr. Gradgrind was for ever +working, in print and out of print, at this eccentric sum, and he +never could make out how it yielded this unaccountable +product.</p> +<p>‘I am sick of my life, Loo. I, hate it altogether, +and I hate everybody except you,’ said the unnatural young +Thomas Gradgrind in the hair-cutting chamber at twilight.</p> +<p>‘You don’t hate Sissy, Tom?’</p> +<p>‘I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And she +hates me,’ said Tom, moodily.</p> +<p>‘No, she does not, Tom, I am sure!’</p> +<p>‘She must,’ said Tom. ‘She must just +hate and detest the whole set-out of us. They’ll +bother her head off, I think, before they have done with +her. Already she’s getting as pale as wax, and as +heavy as—I am.’</p> +<p>Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a +chair before the fire, with his arms on the back, and his sulky +face on his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner by +the fireside, now looking at him, now looking at the bright +sparks as they dropped upon the hearth.</p> +<p>‘As to me,’ said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner +of ways with his sulky hands, ‘I am a Donkey, that’s +what <i>I</i> am. I am as obstinate as one, I am more +stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should like +to kick like one.’</p> +<p>‘Not me, I hope, Tom?’</p> +<p>‘No, Loo; I wouldn’t hurt <i>you</i>. I made +an exception of you at first. I don’t know what +this—jolly old—Jaundiced Jail,’ Tom had paused +to find a sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the +parental roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by the +strong alliteration of this one, ‘would be without +you.’</p> +<p>‘Indeed, Tom? Do you really and truly say +so?’</p> +<p>‘Why, of course I do. What’s the use of +talking about it!’ returned Tom, chafing his face on his +coat-sleeve, as if to mortify his flesh, and have it in unison +with his spirit.</p> +<p>‘Because, Tom,’ said his sister, after silently +watching the sparks awhile, ‘as I get older, and nearer +growing up, I often sit wondering here, and think how unfortunate +it is for me that I can’t reconcile you to home better than +I am able to do. I don’t know what other girls +know. I can’t play to you, or sing to you. I +can’t talk to you so as to lighten your mind, for I never +see any amusing sights or read any amusing books that it would be +a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when you are +tired.’</p> +<p>‘Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that +respect; and I am a Mule too, which you’re not. If +father was determined to make me either a Prig or a Mule, and I +am not a Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be a Mule. +And so I am,’ said Tom, desperately.</p> +<p>‘It’s a great pity,’ said Louisa, after +another pause, and speaking thoughtfully out of her dark corner: +‘it’s a great pity, Tom. It’s very +unfortunate for both of us.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! You,’ said Tom; ‘you are a girl, +Loo, and a girl comes out of it better than a boy does. I +don’t miss anything in you. You are the only pleasure +I have—you can brighten even this place—and you can +always lead me as you like.’</p> +<p>‘You are a dear brother, Tom; and while you think I can +do such things, I don’t so much mind knowing better. +Though I do know better, Tom, and am very sorry for +it.’ She came and kissed him, and went back into her +corner again.</p> +<p>‘I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much +about,’ said Tom, spitefully setting his teeth, ‘and +all the Figures, and all the people who found them out: and I +wish I could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder under them, and +blow them all up together! However, when I go to live with +old Bounderby, I’ll have my revenge.’</p> +<p>‘Your revenge, Tom?’</p> +<p>‘I mean, I’ll enjoy myself a little, and go about +and see something, and hear something. I’ll +recompense myself for the way in which I have been brought +up.’</p> +<p>‘But don’t disappoint yourself beforehand, +Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as father thinks, and is a great +deal rougher, and not half so kind.’</p> +<p>‘Oh!’ said Tom, laughing; ‘I don’t +mind that. I shall very well know how to manage and smooth +old Bounderby!’</p> +<p>Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the +high presses in the room were all blended together on the wall +and on the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were overhung by +a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful imagination—if such +treason could have been there—might have made it out to be +the shadow of their subject, and of its lowering association with +their future.</p> +<p>‘What is your great mode of smoothing and managing, +Tom? Is it a secret?’</p> +<p>‘Oh!’ said Tom, ‘if it is a secret, +it’s not far off. It’s you. You are his +little pet, you are his favourite; he’ll do anything for +you. When he says to me what I don’t like, I shall +say to him, “My sister Loo will be hurt and disappointed, +Mr. Bounderby. She always used to tell me she was sure you +would be easier with me than this.” That’ll +bring him about, or nothing will.’</p> +<p>After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, Tom +wearily relapsed into the present time, and twined himself +yawning round and about the rails of his chair, and rumpled his +head more and more, until he suddenly looked up, and asked:</p> +<p>‘Have you gone to sleep, Loo?’</p> +<p>‘No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.’</p> +<p>‘You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I +could find,’ said Tom. ‘Another of the +advantages, I suppose, of being a girl.’</p> +<p>‘Tom,’ enquired his sister, slowly, and in a +curious tone, as if she were reading what she asked in the fire, +and it was not quite plainly written there, ‘do you look +forward with any satisfaction to this change to Mr. +Bounderby’s?’</p> +<p>‘Why, there’s one thing to be said of it,’ +returned Tom, pushing his chair from him, and standing up; +‘it will be getting away from home.’</p> +<p>‘There is one thing to be said of it,’ Louisa +repeated in her former curious tone; ‘it will be getting +away from home. Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave +you, Loo, and to leave you here. But I must go, you know, +whether I like it or not; and I had better go where I can take +with me some advantage of your influence, than where I should +lose it altogether. Don’t you see?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, Tom.’</p> +<p>The answer was so long in coming, though there was no +indecision in it, that Tom went and leaned on the back of her +chair, to contemplate the fire which so engrossed her, from her +point of view, and see what he could make of it.</p> +<p>‘Except that it is a fire,’ said Tom, ‘it +looks to me as stupid and blank as everything else looks. +What do you see in it? Not a circus?’</p> +<p>‘I don’t see anything in it, Tom, +particularly. But since I have been looking at it, I have +been wondering about you and me, grown up.’</p> +<p>‘Wondering again!’ said Tom.</p> +<p>‘I have such unmanageable thoughts,’ returned his +sister, ‘that they <i>will</i> wonder.’</p> +<p>‘Then I beg of you, Louisa,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, +who had opened the door without being heard, ‘to do nothing +of that description, for goodness’ sake, you inconsiderate +girl, or I shall never hear the last of it from your +father. And, Thomas, it is really shameful, with my poor +head continually wearing me out, that a boy brought up as you +have been, and whose education has cost what yours has, should be +found encouraging his sister to wonder, when he knows his father +has expressly said that she is not to do it.’</p> +<p>Louisa denied Tom’s participation in the offence; but +her mother stopped her with the conclusive answer, ‘Louisa, +don’t tell me, in my state of health; for unless you had +been encouraged, it is morally and physically impossible that you +could have done it.’</p> +<p>‘I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at +the red sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening and +dying. It made me think, after all, how short my life would +be, and how little I could hope to do in it.’</p> +<p>‘Nonsense!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost +energetic. ‘Nonsense! Don’t stand there +and tell me such stuff, Louisa, to <a id="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span>my face, when you know very well that +if it was ever to reach your father’s ears I should never +hear the last of it. After all the trouble that has been +taken with you! After the lectures you have attended, and +the experiments you have seen! After I have heard you +myself, when the whole of my right side has been benumbed, going +on with your master about combustion, and calcination, and +calorification, and I may say every kind of ation that could +drive a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this +absurd way about sparks and ashes! I wish,’ whimpered +Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a chair, and discharging her strongest +point before succumbing under these mere shadows of facts, +‘yes, I really <i>do</i> wish that I had never had a +family, and then you would have known what it was to do without +me!’</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IX<br> +<span class="GutSmall">SISSY’S PROGRESS</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Sissy Jupe</span> had not an easy time of +it, between Mr. M’Choakumchild and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was +not without strong impulses, in the first months of her +probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long so +very hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a +closely ruled ciphering-book, that assuredly she would have run +away, but for only one restraint.</p> +<p>It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the +result of no arithmetical process, was self-imposed in defiance +of all calculation, and went dead against any table of +probabilities that any Actuary would have drawn up from the +premises. The girl believed that her father had not +deserted her; she lived in the hope that he would come back, and +in the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining +where she was.</p> +<p>The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this +consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on a +sound arithmetical basis, that her father was an unnatural +vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet, what was to +be done? M’Choakumchild reported that she had a very +dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea +of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its +exact measurements; that she was extremely slow in the +acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful incident happened to be +connected therewith; that she would burst into tears on being +required (by the mental process) immediately to name the cost of +two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteen-pence +halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school, as low could +be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of +Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a +prattler three feet high, for returning to the question, +‘What is the first principle of this science?’ the +absurd answer, ‘To do unto others as I would that they +should do unto me.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was +very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at +the mill of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, +report, and tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe ‘must +be kept to it.’ So Jupe was kept to it, and became +low-spirited, but no wiser.</p> +<p>‘It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!’ +she said, one night, when Louisa had endeavoured to make her +perplexities for next day something clearer to her.</p> +<p>‘Do you think so?’</p> +<p>‘I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is +difficult to me now, would be so easy then.’</p> +<p>‘You might not be the better for it, Sissy.’</p> +<p>Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, ‘I should +not be the worse, Miss Louisa.’ To which Miss Louisa +answered, ‘I don’t know that.’</p> +<p>There had been so little communication between these +two—both because life at Stone Lodge went monotonously +round like a piece of machinery which discouraged human +interference, and because of the prohibition relative to +Sissy’s past career—that they were still almost +strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed +to Louisa’s face, was uncertain whether to say more or to +remain silent.</p> +<p>‘You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant +with her than I can ever be,’ Louisa resumed. +‘You are pleasanter to yourself, than <i>I</i> am to +<i>my</i>self.’</p> +<p>‘But, if you please, Miss Louisa,’ Sissy pleaded, +‘I am—O so stupid!’</p> +<p>Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her she would +be wiser by-and-by.</p> +<p>‘You don’t know,’ said Sissy, half crying, +‘what a stupid girl I am. All through school hours I +make mistakes. Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild call me +up, over and over again, regularly to make mistakes. I +can’t help them. They seem to come natural to +me.’</p> +<p>‘Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild never make any +mistakes themselves, I suppose, Sissy?’</p> +<p>‘O no!’ she eagerly returned. ‘They +know everything.’</p> +<p>‘Tell me some of your mistakes.’</p> +<p>‘I am almost ashamed,’ said Sissy, with +reluctance. ‘But to-day, for instance, Mr. +M’Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural +Prosperity.’</p> +<p>‘National, I think it must have been,’ observed +Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Yes, it was.—But isn’t it the same?’ +she timidly asked.</p> +<p>‘You had better say, National, as he said so,’ +returned Louisa, with her dry reserve.</p> +<p>‘National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this +schoolroom is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty +millions of money. Isn’t this a prosperous +nation? Girl number twenty, isn’t this a prosperous +nation, and a’n’t you in a thriving state?’</p> +<p>‘What did you say?’ asked Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I +thought I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation +or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I +knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. +But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the +figures at all,’ said Sissy, wiping her eyes.</p> +<p>‘That was a great mistake of yours,’ observed +Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. +M’Choakumchild said he would try me again. And he +said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a +million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to +death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your +remark on that proportion? And my remark was—for I +couldn’t think of a better one—that I thought it must +be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others +were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong, +too.’</p> +<p>‘Of course it was.’</p> +<p>‘Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he would try me once +more. And he said, Here are the +stutterings—’</p> +<p>‘Statistics,’ said Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Yes, Miss Louisa—they always remind me of +stutterings, and that’s another of my mistakes—of +accidents upon the sea. And I find (Mr. +M’Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred +thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five +hundred of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is the +percentage? And I said, Miss;’ here Sissy fairly +sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest +error; ‘I said it was nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Nothing, Sissy?’</p> +<p>‘Nothing, Miss—to the relations and friends of the +people who were killed. I shall never learn,’ said +Sissy. ‘And the worst of all is, that although my +poor father wished me so much to learn, and although I am so +anxious to learn, because he wished me to, I am afraid I +don’t like it.’</p> +<p>Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it drooped +abashed before her, until it was raised again to glance at her +face. Then she asked:</p> +<p>‘Did your father know so much himself, that he wished +you to be well taught too, Sissy?’</p> +<p>Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her +sense that they were entering on forbidden ground, that Louisa +added, ‘No one hears us; and if any one did, I am sure no +harm could be found in such an innocent question.’</p> +<p>‘No, Miss Louisa,’ answered Sissy, upon this +encouragement, shaking her head; ‘father knows very little +indeed. It’s as much as he can do to write; and +it’s more than people in general can do to read his +writing. Though it’s plain to <i>me</i>.’</p> +<p>‘Your mother?’</p> +<p>‘Father says she was quite a scholar. She died +when I was born. She was;’ Sissy made the terrible +communication nervously; ‘she was a dancer.’</p> +<p>‘Did your father love her?’ Louisa asked +these questions with a strong, wild, wandering interest peculiar +to her; an interest gone astray like a banished creature, and +hiding in solitary places.</p> +<p>‘O yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father +loved me, first, for her sake. He carried me about with him +when I was quite a baby. We have never been asunder from +that time.’</p> +<p>‘Yet he leaves you now, Sissy?’</p> +<p>‘Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do; +nobody knows him as I do. When he left me for my +good—he never would have left me for his own—I know +he was almost broken-hearted with the trial. He will not be +happy for a single minute, till he comes back.’</p> +<p>‘Tell me more about him,’ said Louisa, ‘I +will never ask you again. Where did you live?’</p> +<p>‘We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place +to live in. Father’s a;’ Sissy whispered the awful +word, ‘a clown.’</p> +<p>‘To make the people laugh?’ said Louisa, with a +nod of intelligence.</p> +<p>‘Yes. But they wouldn’t laugh sometimes, and +then father cried. Lately, they very often wouldn’t +laugh, and he used to come home despairing. Father’s +not like most. Those who didn’t know him as well as I +do, and didn’t love him as dearly as I do, might believe he +was not quite right. Sometimes they played tricks upon him; +but they never knew how he felt them, and shrunk up, when he was +alone with me. He was far, far timider than they +thought!’</p> +<p>‘And you were his comfort through everything?’</p> +<p>She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. +‘I hope so, and father said I was. It was because he +grew so scared and trembling, and because he felt himself to be a +poor, weak, ignorant, helpless man (those used to be his words), +that he wanted me so much to know a great deal, and be different +from him. I used to read to him to cheer his courage, and +he was very fond of that. They were wrong books—I am +never to speak of them here—but we didn’t know there +was any harm in them.’</p> +<p>‘And he liked them?’ said Louisa, with a searching +gaze on Sissy all this time.</p> +<p>‘O very much! They kept him, many times, from what +did him real harm. And often and often of a night, he used +to forget all his troubles in wondering whether the Sultan would +let the lady go on with the story, or would have her head cut off +before it was finished.’</p> +<p>‘And your father was always kind? To the +last?’ asked Louisa contravening the great principle, and +wondering very much.</p> +<p>‘Always, always!’ returned Sissy, clasping her +hands. ‘Kinder and kinder than I can tell. He +was angry only one night, and that was not to me, but +Merrylegs. Merrylegs;’ she whispered the awful fact; +‘is his performing dog.’</p> +<p>‘Why was he angry with the dog?’ Louisa +demanded.</p> +<p>‘Father, soon after they came home from performing, told +Merrylegs to jump up on the backs of the two chairs and stand +across them—which is one of his tricks. He looked at +father, and didn’t do it at once. Everything of +father’s had gone wrong that night, and he hadn’t +pleased the public at all. He cried out that the very dog +knew he was failing, and had no compassion on him. Then he +beat the dog, and I was frightened, and said, “Father, +father! Pray don’t hurt the creature who is so fond +of you! O Heaven forgive you, father, stop!” +And he stopped, and the dog was bloody, and father lay down +crying on the floor with the dog in his arms, and the dog licked +his face.’</p> +<p>Louisa saw that she was sobbing; and going to her, kissed her, +took her hand, and sat down beside her.</p> +<p>‘Finish by telling me how your father left you, +Sissy. Now that I have asked you so much, tell me the +end. The blame, if there is any blame, is mine, not +yours.’</p> +<p>‘Dear Miss Louisa,’ said Sissy, covering her eyes, +and sobbing yet; ‘I came home from the school that +afternoon, and found poor father just come home too, from the +booth. And he sat rocking himself over the fire, as if he +was in pain. And I said, “Have you hurt yourself, +father?” (as he did sometimes, like they all did), and he +said, “A little, my darling.” And when I came +to stoop down and look up at his face, I saw that he was +crying. The more I spoke to him, the more he hid his face; +and at first he shook all over, and said nothing but “My +darling;” and “My love!”’</p> +<p>Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two with a +coolness not particularly savouring of interest in anything but +himself, and not much of that at present.</p> +<p>‘I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,’ observed +his sister. ‘You have no occasion to go away; but +don’t interrupt us for a moment, Tom dear.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! very well!’ returned Tom. ‘Only +father has brought old Bounderby home, and I want you to come +into the drawing-room. Because if you come, there’s a +good chance of old Bounderby’s asking me to dinner; and if +you don’t, there’s none.’</p> +<p>‘I’ll come directly.’</p> +<p>‘I’ll wait for you,’ said Tom, ‘to +make sure.’</p> +<p>Sissy resumed in a lower voice. ‘At last poor +father said that he had given no satisfaction again, and never +did give any satisfaction now, and that he was a shame and +disgrace, and I should have done better without him all +along. I said all the affectionate things to him that came +into my heart, and presently he was quiet and I sat down by him, +and told him all about the school and everything that had been +said and done there. When I had no more left to tell, he +put his arms round my neck, and kissed me a great many +times. Then he asked me to fetch some of the stuff he used, +for the little hurt he had had, and to get it at the best place, +which was at the other end of town from there; and then, after +kissing me again, he let me go. When I had gone +down-stairs, I turned back that I might be a little bit more +company to him yet, and looked in at the door, and said, +“Father dear, shall I take Merrylegs?” Father +shook his head and said, “No, Sissy, no; take nothing +that’s known to be mine, my darling;” and I left him +sitting by the fire. Then the thought must have come upon +him, poor, poor father! of going away to try something for my +sake; for when I came back, he was gone.’</p> +<p>‘I say! Look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!’ +Tom remonstrated.</p> +<p>‘There’s no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I +keep the nine oils ready for him, and I know he will come +back. Every letter that I see in Mr. Gradgrind’s hand +takes my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I think it comes +from father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. Mr. Sleary +promised to write as soon as ever father should be heard of, and +I trust to him to keep his word.’</p> +<p>‘Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!’ said Tom, +with an impatient whistle. ‘He’ll be off if you +don’t look sharp!’</p> +<p>After this, whenever Sissy dropped a curtsey to Mr. Gradgrind +in the presence of his family, and said in a faltering way, +‘I beg your pardon, sir, for being +troublesome—but—have you had any letter yet about +me?’ Louisa would suspend the occupation of the +moment, whatever it was, and look for the reply as earnestly as +Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind regularly answered, +‘No, Jupe, nothing of the sort,’ the trembling of +Sissy’s lip would be repeated in Louisa’s face, and +her eyes would follow Sissy with compassion to the door. +Mr. Gradgrind usually improved these occasions by remarking, when +she was gone, that if Jupe had been properly trained from an +early age she would have remonstrated to herself on sound +principles the baselessness of these fantastic hopes. Yet +it did seem (though not to him, for he saw nothing of it) as if +fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact.</p> +<p><a id="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>This +observation must be limited exclusively to his daughter. As +to Tom, he was becoming that not unprecedented triumph of +calculation which is usually at work on number one. As to +Mrs. Gradgrind, if she said anything on the subject, she would +come a little way out of her wrappers, like a feminine dormouse, +and say:</p> +<p>‘Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and +worried by that girl Jupe’s so perseveringly asking, over +and over again, about her tiresome letters! Upon my word +and honour I seem to be fated, and destined, and ordained, to +live in the midst of things that I am never to hear the last +of. It really is a most extraordinary circumstance that it +appears as if I never was to hear the last of +anything!’</p> +<p>At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind’s eye would fall upon +her; and under the influence of that wintry piece of fact, she +would become torpid again.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER X<br> +<span class="GutSmall">STEPHEN BLACKPOOL</span></h3> +<p>I <span class="smcap">entertain</span> a weak idea that the +English people are as hard-worked as any people upon whom the sun +shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous idiosyncrasy, as a +reason why I would give them a little more play.</p> +<p>In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost +fortifications of that ugly citadel, where Nature was as strongly +bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in; at the +heart of the labyrinth of narrow courts upon courts, and close +streets upon streets, which had come into existence piecemeal, +every piece in a violent hurry for some one man’s purpose, +and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, +and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this +great exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to +make a draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and +crooked shapes, as though every house put out a sign of the kind +of people who might be expected to be born in it; among the +multitude of Coketown, generically called ‘the +Hands,’—a race who would have found more favour with +some people, if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands, +or, like the lower creatures of the seashore, only hands and +stomachs—lived a certain Stephen Blackpool, forty years of +age.</p> +<p>Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is +said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, +however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in +Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had become possessed +of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody +else’s thorns in addition to his own. He had known, +to use his words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called +Old Stephen, in a kind of rough homage to the fact.</p> +<p>A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering +expression of face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently +capacious, on which his iron-grey hair lay long and thin, Old +Stephen might have passed for a particularly intelligent man in +his condition. Yet he was not. He took no place among +those remarkable ‘Hands,’ who, piecing together their +broken intervals of leisure through many years, had mastered +difficult sciences, and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely +things. He held no station among the Hands who could make +speeches and carry on debates. Thousands of his compeers +could talk much better than he, at any time. He was a good +power-loom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What +more he was, or what else he had in him, if anything, let him +show for himself.</p> +<p>The lights in the great factories, which looked, when they +were illuminated, like Fairy palaces—or the travellers by +express-train said so—were all extinguished; and the bells +had rung for knocking off for the night, and had ceased again; +and the Hands, men and women, boy and girl, were clattering +home. Old Stephen was standing in the street, with the old +sensation upon him which the stoppage of the machinery always +produced—the sensation of its having worked and stopped in +his own head.</p> +<p>‘Yet I don’t see Rachael, still!’ said +he.</p> +<p>It was a wet night, and many groups of young women passed him, +with their shawls drawn over their bare heads and held close +under their chins to keep the rain out. He knew Rachael +well, for a glance at any one of these groups was sufficient to +show him that she was not there. At last, there were no +more to come; and then he turned away, saying in a tone of +disappointment, ‘Why, then, ha’ missed +her!’</p> +<p>But, he had not gone the length of three streets, when he saw +another of the shawled figures in advance of him, at which he +looked so keenly that perhaps its mere shadow indistinctly +reflected on the wet pavement—if he could have seen it +without the figure itself moving along from lamp to lamp, +brightening and fading as it went—would have been enough to +tell him who was there. Making his pace at once much +quicker and much softer, he darted on until he was very near this +figure, then fell into his former walk, and called +‘Rachael!’</p> +<p>She turned, being then in the brightness of a lamp; and +raising her hood a little, showed a quiet oval face, dark and +rather delicate, irradiated by a pair of very gentle eyes, and +further set off by the perfect order of her shining black +hair. It was not a face in its first bloom; she was a woman +five and thirty years of age.</p> +<p>‘Ah, lad! ’Tis thou?’ When she +had said this, with a smile which would have been quite +expressed, though nothing of her had been seen but her pleasant +eyes, she replaced her hood again, and they went on together.</p> +<p>‘I thought thou wast ahind me, Rachael?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Early t’night, lass?’</p> +<p>‘’Times I’m a little early, Stephen! +’times a little late. I’m never to be counted +on, going home.’</p> +<p>‘Nor going t’other way, neither, ’t seems to +me, Rachael?’</p> +<p>‘No, Stephen.’</p> +<p>He looked at her with some disappointment in his face, but +with a respectful and patient conviction that she must be right +in whatever she did. The expression was not lost upon her; +she laid her hand lightly on his arm a moment as if to thank him +for it.</p> +<p>‘We are such true friends, lad, and such old friends, +and getting to be such old folk, now.’</p> +<p>‘No, Rachael, thou’rt as young as ever thou +wast.’</p> +<p>‘One of us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephen, +without ’t other getting so too, both being alive,’ +she answered, laughing; ‘but, anyways, we’re such old +friends, and t’ hide a word of honest truth fro’ one +another would be a sin and a pity. ’Tis better not to +walk too much together. ’Times, yes! +’Twould be hard, indeed, if ’twas not to be at +all,’ she said, with a cheerfulness she sought to +communicate to him.</p> +<p>‘’Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.’</p> +<p>‘Try to think not; and ’twill seem +better.’</p> +<p>‘I’ve tried a long time, and ’ta’nt +got better. But thou’rt right; ’t might mak fok +talk, even of thee. Thou hast been that to me, Rachael, +through so many year: thou hast done me so much good, and +heartened of me in that cheering way, that thy word is a law to +me. Ah, lass, and a bright good law! Better than some +real ones.’</p> +<p>‘Never fret about them, Stephen,’ she answered +quickly, and not without an anxious glance at his face. +‘Let the laws be.’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ he said, with a slow nod or two. +‘Let ’em be. Let everything be. Let all +sorts alone. ’Tis a muddle, and that’s +aw.’</p> +<p>‘Always a muddle?’ said Rachael, with another +gentle touch upon his arm, as if to recall him out of the +thoughtfulness, in which he was biting the long ends of his loose +neckerchief as he walked along. The touch had its +instantaneous effect. He let them fall, turned a smiling +face upon her, and said, as he broke into a good-humoured laugh, +‘Ay, Rachael, lass, awlus a muddle. That’s +where I stick. I come to the muddle many times and agen, +and I never get beyond it.’</p> +<p>They had walked some distance, and were near their own +homes. The woman’s was the first reached. It +was in one of the many small streets for which the favourite +undertaker (who turned a handsome sum out of the one poor ghastly +pomp of the neighbourhood) kept a black ladder, in order that +those who had done their daily groping up and down the narrow +stairs might slide out of this working world by the +windows. She stopped at the corner, and putting her hand in +his, wished him good night.</p> +<p>‘Good night, dear lass; good night!’</p> +<p>She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly step, +down the dark street, and he stood looking after her until she +turned into one of the small houses. There was not a +flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, but had its interest in +this man’s eyes; not a tone of her voice but had its echo +in his innermost heart.</p> +<p>When she was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward way, +glancing up sometimes at the sky, where the clouds were sailing +fast and wildly. But, they were broken now, and the rain +had ceased, and the moon shone,—looking down the high +chimneys of Coketown on the deep furnaces below, and casting +Titanic shadows of the steam-engines at rest, upon the walls +where they were lodged. The man seemed to have brightened +with the night, as he went on.</p> +<p>His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it +was narrower, was over a little shop. How it came to pass +that any people found it worth their while to sell or buy the +wretched little toys, mixed up in its window with cheap +newspapers and pork (there was a leg to be raffled for +to-morrow-night), matters not here. He took his end of +candle from a shelf, lighted it at another end of candle on the +counter, without disturbing the mistress of the shop who was +asleep in her little room, and went upstairs into his +lodging.</p> +<p>It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under +various tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could +be. A few books and writings were on an old bureau in a +corner, the furniture was decent and sufficient, and, though the +atmosphere was tainted, the room was clean.</p> +<p>Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round +three-legged table standing there, he stumbled against +something. As he recoiled, looking down at it, it raised +itself up into the form of a woman in a sitting attitude.</p> +<p>‘Heaven’s mercy, woman!’ he cried, falling +farther off from the figure. ‘Hast thou come back +again!’</p> +<p>Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able +to preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself with one +begrimed hand on the floor, while the other was so purposeless in +trying to <a id="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>push away her tangled hair from her face, that it only +blinded her the more with the dirt upon it. A creature so +foul to look at, in her tatters, stains and splashes, but so much +fouler than that in her moral infamy, that it was a shameful +thing even to see her.</p> +<p>After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of +herself with the hand not necessary to her support, she got her +hair away from her eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of +him. Then she sat swaying her body to and fro, and making +gestures with her unnerved arm, which seemed intended as the +accompaniment to a fit of laughter, though her face was stolid +and drowsy.</p> +<p>‘Eigh, lad? What, yo’r there?’ +Some hoarse sounds meant for this, came mockingly out of her at +last; and her head dropped forward on her breast.</p> +<p>‘Back agen?’ she screeched, after some minutes, as +if he had that moment said it. ‘Yes! And back +agen. Back agen ever and ever so often. Back? +Yes, back. Why not?’</p> +<p>Roused by the unmeaning violence with which she cried it out, +she scrambled up, and stood supporting herself with her shoulders +against the wall; dangling in one hand by the string, a +dunghill-fragment of a bonnet, and trying to look scornfully at +him.</p> +<p>‘I’ll sell thee off again, and I’ll sell +thee off again, and I’ll sell thee off a score of +times!’ she cried, with something between a furious menace +and an effort at a defiant dance. ‘Come awa’ +from th’ bed!’ He was sitting on the side of +it, with his face hidden in his hands. ‘Come awa! +from ’t. ’Tis mine, and I’ve a right to +t’!’</p> +<p>As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, and +passed—his face still hidden—to the opposite end of +the room. She threw herself upon the bed heavily, and soon +was snoring hard. He sunk into a chair, and moved but once +all that night. It was to throw a covering over her; as if +his hands were not enough to hide her, even in the darkness.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">NO WAY OUT</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Fairy palaces burst into +illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents +of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A clattering of +clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all the +melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the +day’s monotony, were at their heavy exercise again.</p> +<p>Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. +A special contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where +Stephen worked, to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of +mechanism at which he laboured. Never fear, good people of +an anxious turn of mind, that Art will consign Nature to +oblivion. Set anywhere, side by side, the work of <span +class="smcap">God</span> and the work of man; and the former, +even though it be a troop of Hands of very small account, will +gain in dignity from the comparison.</p> +<p>So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse +Steam Power. It is known, to the force of a single pound +weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of +the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for +love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the +decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at any single +moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with the +composed faces and the regulated actions. There is no +mystery in it; there is an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of +them, for ever.—Supposing we were to reverse our arithmetic +for material objects, and to govern these awful unknown +quantities by other means!</p> +<p>The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against +the flaming lights within. The lights were turned out, and +the work went on. The rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, +submissive to the curse of all that tribe, trailed themselves +upon the earth. In the waste-yard outside, the steam from +the escape pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron, the shining +heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of +mist and rain.</p> +<p>The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. More +clattering upon the pavements. The looms, and wheels, and +Hands all out of gear for an hour.</p> +<p>Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold +wet streets, haggard and worn. He turned from his own class +and his own quarter, taking nothing but a little bread as he +walked along, towards the hill on which his principal employer +lived, in a red house with black outside shutters, green inside +blinds, a black street door, up two white steps, <span +class="smcap">Bounderby</span> (in letters very like himself) +upon a brazen plate, and a round brazen door-handle underneath +it, like a brazen full-stop.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had +expected. Would his servant say that one of the Hands +begged leave to speak to him? Message in return, requiring +name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. There was +nothing troublesome against Stephen Blackpool; yes, he might come +in.</p> +<p>Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he +just knew by sight), at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. +Sparsit netting at the fireside, in a side-saddle attitude, with +one foot in a cotton stirrup. It was a part, at once of +Mrs. Sparsit’s dignity and service, not to lunch. She +supervised the meal officially, but implied that in her own +stately person she considered lunch a weakness.</p> +<p>‘Now, Stephen,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘what’s the matter with <i>you</i>?’</p> +<p>Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one—these Hands +will never do that! Lord bless you, sir, you’ll never +catch them at that, if they have been with you twenty +years!—and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, +tucked his neckerchief ends into his waistcoat.</p> +<p>‘Now, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, taking some +sherry, ‘we have never had any difficulty with you, and you +have never been one of the unreasonable ones. You +don’t expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be fed +on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a good many of +’em do!’ Mr. Bounderby always represented this +to be the sole, immediate, and direct object of any Hand who was +not entirely satisfied; ‘and therefore I know already that +you have not come here to make a complaint. Now, you know, +I am certain of that, beforehand.’</p> +<p>‘No, sir, sure I ha’ not coom for nowt o’ +th’ kind.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his +previous strong conviction. ‘Very well,’ he +returned. ‘You’re a steady Hand, and I was not +mistaken. Now, let me hear what it’s all about. +As it’s not that, let me hear what it is. What have +you got to say? Out with it, lad!’</p> +<p>Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. +‘I can go, Mr. Bounderby, if you wish it,’ said that +self-sacrificing lady, making a feint of taking her foot out of +the stirrup.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in +suspension before swallowing it, and putting out his left +hand. Then, withdrawing his hand and swallowing his +mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen:</p> +<p>‘Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high +lady. You are not to suppose because she keeps my house for +me, that she hasn’t been very high up the tree—ah, up +at the top of the tree! Now, if you have got anything to +say that can’t be said before a born lady, this lady will +leave the room. If what you have got to say <i>can</i> be +said before a born lady, this lady will stay where she +is.’</p> +<p>‘Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a +born lady to year, sin’ I were born mysen’,’ +was the reply, accompanied with a slight flush.</p> +<p>‘Very well,’ said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his +plate, and leaning back. ‘Fire away!’</p> +<p>‘I ha’ coom,’ Stephen began, raising his +eyes from the floor, after a moment’s consideration, +‘to ask yo yor advice. I need ’t +overmuch. I were married on Eas’r Monday nineteen +year sin, long and dree. She were a young lass—pretty +enow—wi’ good accounts of herseln. Well! +She went bad—soon. Not along of me. Gonnows I +were not a unkind husband to her.’</p> +<p>‘I have heard all this before,’ said Mr. +Bounderby. ‘She took to drinking, left off working, +sold the furniture, pawned the clothes, and played old +Gooseberry.’</p> +<p>‘I were patient wi’ her.’</p> +<p>(‘The more fool you, I think,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +in confidence to his wine-glass.)</p> +<p>‘I were very patient wi’ her. I tried to +wean her fra ’t ower and ower agen. I tried this, I +tried that, I tried t’other. I ha’ gone home, +many’s the time, and found all vanished as I had in the +world, and her without a sense left to bless herseln lying on +bare ground. I ha’ dun ’t not once, not +twice—twenty time!’</p> +<p>Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its +affecting evidence of the suffering he had undergone.</p> +<p>‘From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left +me. She disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad. +She coom back, she coom back, she coom back. What could I +do t’ hinder her? I ha’ walked the streets +nights long, ere ever I’d go home. I ha’ gone +t’ th’ brigg, minded to fling myseln ower, and +ha’ no more on’t. I ha’ bore that much, +that I were owd when I were young.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting-needles, +raised the Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her head, as much as to +say, ‘The great know trouble as well as the small. +Please to turn your humble eye in My direction.’</p> +<p>‘I ha’ paid her to keep awa’ fra’ +me. These five year I ha’ paid her. I ha’ +gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I ha’ lived +hard and sad, but not ashamed and fearfo’ a’ the +minnits o’ my life. Last night, I went home. +There she lay upon my har-stone! There she is!’</p> +<p>In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his +distress, he fired for the moment like a proud man. In +another moment, he stood as he had stood all the time—his +usual stoop upon him; his pondering face addressed to Mr. +Bounderby, with a curious expression on it, half shrewd, half +perplexed, as if his mind were set upon unravelling something +very difficult; his hat held tight in his left hand, which rested +on his hip; his right arm, with a rugged propriety and force of +action, very earnestly emphasizing what he said: not least so +when it always paused, a little bent, but not withdrawn, as he +paused.</p> +<p>‘I was acquainted with all this, you know,’ said +Mr. Bounderby, ‘except the last clause, long ago. +It’s a bad job; that’s what it is. You had +better have been satisfied as you were, and not have got +married. However, it’s too late to say +that.’</p> +<p>‘Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of +years?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal +marriage in point of years, this unlucky job of yours?’ +said Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; +she were twenty nighbut.’</p> +<p>‘Indeed, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, +with great placidity. ‘I inferred, from its being so +miserable a marriage, that it was probably an unequal one in +point of years.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a side-long +way that had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified +himself with a little more sherry.</p> +<p>‘Well? Why don’t you go on?’ he then +asked, turning rather irritably on Stephen Blackpool.</p> +<p>‘I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded +o’ this woman.’ Stephen infused a yet deeper +gravity into the mixed expression of his attentive face. +Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having received a +moral shock.</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’ said Bounderby, getting up to +lean his back against the chimney-piece. ‘What are +you talking about? You took her for better for +worse.’</p> +<p>‘I mun’ be ridden o’ her. I cannot +bear ’t nommore. I ha’ lived under ’t so +long, for that I ha’ had’n the pity and comforting +words o’ th’ best lass living or dead. Haply, +but for her, I should ha’ gone battering mad.’</p> +<p>‘He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he +speaks, I fear, sir,’ observed Mrs. Sparsit in an +undertone, and much dejected by the immorality of the people.</p> +<p>‘I do. The lady says what’s right. I +do. I were a coming to ’t. I ha’ read +i’ th’ papers that great folk (fair faw ’em +a’! I wishes ’em no hurt!) are not bonded +together for better for worst so fast, but that they can be set +free fro’ <i>their</i> misfortnet marriages, an’ +marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their +tempers is ill-sorted, they has rooms o’ one kind an’ +another in their houses, above a bit, and they can live +asunders. We fok ha’ only one room, and we +can’t. When that won’t do, they ha’ gowd +an’ other cash, an’ they can say “This for +yo’ an’ that for me,” an’ they can go +their separate ways. We can’t. Spite o’ +all that, they can be set free for smaller wrongs than +mine. So, I mun be ridden o’ this woman, and I want +t’ know how?’</p> +<p>‘No how,’ returned Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘If I do her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to +punish me?’</p> +<p>‘Of course there is.’</p> +<p>‘If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish +me?’</p> +<p>‘Of course there is.’</p> +<p>‘If I marry t’oother dear lass, there’s a +law to punish me?’</p> +<p>‘Of course there is.’</p> +<p>‘If I was to live wi’ her an’ not marry +her—saying such a thing could be, which it never could or +would, an’ her so good—there’s a law to punish +me, in every innocent child belonging to me?’</p> +<p>‘Of course there is.’</p> +<p>‘Now, a’ God’s name,’ said Stephen +Blackpool, ‘show me the law to help me!’</p> +<p>‘Hem! There’s a sanctity in this relation of +life,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘and—and—it +must be kept up.’</p> +<p>‘No no, dunnot say that, sir. ’Tan’t +kep’ up that way. Not that way. ’Tis +kep’ down that way. I’m a weaver, I were in a +fact’ry when a chilt, but I ha’ gotten een to see +wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ +papers every ’Sizes, every Sessions—and you read +too—I know it!—with dismay—how th’ +supposed unpossibility o’ ever getting unchained from one +another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, +and brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden +death. Let us ha’ this, right understood. +Mine’s a grievous case, an’ I want—if yo will +be so good—t’ know the law that helps me.’</p> +<p>‘Now, I tell you what!’ said Mr. Bounderby, +putting his hands in his pockets. ‘There <i>is</i> +such a law.’</p> +<p>Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering +in his attention, gave a nod.</p> +<p>‘But it’s not for you at all. It costs +money. It costs a mint of money.’</p> +<p>‘How much might that be?’ Stephen calmly +asked.</p> +<p>‘Why, you’d have to go to Doctors’ Commons +with a suit, and you’d have to go to a court of Common Law +with a suit, and you’d have to go to the House of Lords +with a suit, and you’d have to get an Act of Parliament to +enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a +case of very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen +hundred pound,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Perhaps +twice the money.’</p> +<p>‘There’s no other law?’</p> +<p>‘Certainly not.’</p> +<p>‘Why then, sir,’ said Stephen, turning white, and +motioning with that right hand of his, as if he gave everything +to the four winds, ‘’<i>tis</i> a muddle. +’Tis just a muddle a’toogether, an’ the sooner +I am dead, the better.’</p> +<p>(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the +people.)</p> +<p>‘Pooh, pooh! Don’t you talk nonsense, my +good fellow,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘about things you +don’t understand; and don’t you call the Institutions +of your country a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a +real muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of +your country are not your piece-work, and the only thing you have +got to do, is, to mind your piece-work. You didn’t +take your wife <a id="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>for fast and for loose; but for better for worse. +If she has turned out worse—why, all we have got to say is, +she might have turned out better.’</p> +<p>‘’Tis a muddle,’ said Stephen, shaking his +head as he moved to the door. ‘’Tis a’ a +muddle!’</p> +<p>‘Now, I’ll tell you what!’ Mr. Bounderby +resumed, as a valedictory address. ‘With what I shall +call your unhallowed opinions, you have been quite shocking this +lady: who, as I have already told you, is a born lady, and who, +as I have not already told you, has had her own marriage +misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds—tens +of Thousands of Pounds!’ (he repeated it with great +relish). ‘Now, you have always been a steady Hand +hitherto; but my opinion is, and so I tell you plainly, that you +are turning into the wrong road. You have been listening to +some mischievous stranger or other—they’re always +about—and the best thing you can do is, to come out of +that. Now you know;’ here his countenance expressed +marvellous acuteness; ‘I can see as far into a grindstone +as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I had +my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see traces of +the turtle soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. Yes, +I do!’ cried Mr. Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate +cunning. ‘By the Lord Harry, I do!’</p> +<p>With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, Stephen +said, ‘Thank you, sir, I wish you good day.’ So +he left Mr. Bounderby swelling at his own portrait on the wall, +as if he were going to explode himself into it; and Mrs. Sparsit +still ambling on with her foot in her stirrup, looking quite cast +down by the popular vices.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE OLD WOMAN</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Old Stephen</span> descended the two white +steps, shutting the black door with the brazen door-plate, by the +aid of the brazen full-stop, to which he gave a parting polish +with the sleeve of his coat, observing that his hot hand clouded +it. He crossed the street with his eyes bent upon the +ground, and thus was walking sorrowfully away, when he felt a +touch upon his arm.</p> +<p>It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment—the +touch that could calm the wild waters of his soul, as the +uplifted hand of the sublimest love and patience could abate the +raging of the sea—yet it was a woman’s hand +too. It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, though +withered by time, on whom his eyes fell when he stopped and +turned. She was very cleanly and plainly dressed, had +country mud upon her shoes, and was newly come from a +journey. The flutter of her manner, in the unwonted noise +of the streets; the spare shawl, carried unfolded on her arm; the +heavy umbrella, and little basket; the loose long-fingered +gloves, to which her hands were unused; all bespoke an old woman +from the country, in her plain holiday clothes, come into +Coketown on an expedition of rare occurrence. Remarking +this at a glance, with the quick observation of his class, +Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face—his face, which, +like the faces of many of his order, by dint of long working with +eyes and hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, had acquired +the concentrated look with which we are familiar in the +countenances of the deaf—the better to hear what she asked +him.</p> +<p>‘Pray, sir,’ said the old woman, +‘didn’t I see you come out of that gentleman’s +house?’ pointing back to Mr. Bounderby’s. +‘I believe it was you, unless I have had the bad luck to +mistake the person in following?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, missus,’ returned Stephen, ‘it were +me.’</p> +<p>‘Have you—you’ll excuse an old woman’s +curiosity—have you seen the gentleman?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, missus.’</p> +<p>‘And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, +outspoken, and hearty?’ As she straightened her own +figure, and held up her head in adapting her action to her words, +the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this old woman before, +and had not quite liked her.</p> +<p>‘O yes,’ he returned, observing her more +attentively, ‘he were all that.’</p> +<p>‘And healthy,’ said the old woman, ‘as the +fresh wind?’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ returned Stephen. ‘He were +ett’n and drinking—as large and as loud as a +Hummobee.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you!’ said the old woman, with infinite +content. ‘Thank you!’</p> +<p>He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet +there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than +once dreamed of some old woman like her.</p> +<p>She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating +himself to her humour, he said Coketown was a busy place, was it +not? To which she answered ‘Eigh sure! Dreadful +busy!’ Then he said, she came from the country, he +saw? To which she answered in the affirmative.</p> +<p>‘By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile +by Parliamentary this morning, and I’m going back the same +forty mile this afternoon. I walked nine mile to the +station this morning, and if I find nobody on the road to give me +a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back to-night. +That’s pretty well, sir, at my age!’ said the chatty +old woman, her eye brightening with exultation.</p> +<p>‘’Deed ’tis. Don’t do’t +too often, missus.’</p> +<p>‘No, no. Once a year,’ she answered, shaking +her head. ‘I spend my savings so, once every +year. I come regular, to tramp about the streets, and see +the gentlemen.’</p> +<p>‘Only to see ’em?’ returned Stephen.</p> +<p>‘That’s enough for me,’ she replied, with +great earnestness and interest of manner. ‘I ask no +more! I have been standing about, on this side of the way, +to see that gentleman,’ turning her head back towards Mr. +Bounderby’s again, ‘come out. But, he’s +late this year, and I have not seen him. You came out +instead. Now, if I am obliged to go back without a glimpse +of him—I only want a glimpse—well! I have seen +you, and you have seen him, and I must make that do.’ +Saying this, she looked at Stephen as if to fix his features in +her mind, and her eye was not so bright as it had been.</p> +<p>With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all +submission to the patricians of Coketown, this seemed so +extraordinary a source of interest to take so much trouble about, +that it perplexed him. But they were passing the church +now, and as his eye caught the clock, he quickened his pace.</p> +<p>He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, +too, quite easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his +telling her where he worked, the old woman became a more singular +old woman than before.</p> +<p>‘An’t you happy?’ she asked him.</p> +<p>‘Why—there’s awmost nobbody but has their +troubles, missus.’ He answered evasively, because the +old woman appeared to take it for granted that he would be very +happy indeed, and he had not the heart to disappoint her. +He knew that there was trouble enough in the world; and if the +old woman had lived so long, and could count upon his having so +little, why so much the better for her, and none the worse for +him.</p> +<p>‘Ay, ay! You have your troubles at home, you +mean?’ she said.</p> +<p>‘Times. Just now and then,’ he answered, +slightly.</p> +<p>‘But, working under such a gentleman, they don’t +follow you to the Factory?’</p> +<p>No, no; they didn’t follow him there, said +Stephen. All correct there. Everything accordant +there. (He did not go so far as to say, for her pleasure, +that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard +claims almost as magnificent of late years.)</p> +<p>They were now in the black by-road near the place, and the +Hands were crowding in. The bell was ringing, and the +Serpent was a Serpent of many coils, and the Elephant was getting +ready. The strange old woman was delighted with the very +bell. It was the beautifullest bell she had ever heard, she +said, and sounded grand!</p> +<p>She asked him, when he stopped good-naturedly to shake hands +with her before going in, how long he had worked there?</p> +<p>‘A dozen year,’ he told her.</p> +<p>‘I must kiss the hand,’ said she, ‘that has +worked in this fine factory for a dozen year!’ And +she lifted it, though he would have prevented her, and put it to +her lips. What harmony, besides her age and her simplicity, +surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantastic +action there was a something neither out of time nor place: a +something which it seemed as if nobody else could have made as +serious, or done with such a natural and touching air.</p> +<p>He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking about this +old woman, when, having occasion to move round the loom for its +adjustment, he glanced through a window which was in his corner, +and saw her still looking up at the pile of building, lost in +admiration. Heedless of the smoke and mud and wet, and of +her two long journeys, she was gazing at it, as if the heavy +thrum that issued from its many stories were proud music to +her.</p> +<p>She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the +lights sprung up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of +the Fairy Palace over the arches near: little felt amid the +jarring of the machinery, and scarcely heard above its crash and +rattle. Long before then his thoughts had gone back to the +dreary room above the little shop, and to the shameful figure +heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart.</p> +<p>Machinery slackened; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; +stopped. The bell again; the glare of light and heat +dispelled; the factories, looming heavy in the black wet +night—their tall chimneys rising up into the air like +competing Towers of Babel.</p> +<p>He had spoken to Rachael only last night, it was true, and had +walked with her a little way; but he had his new misfortune on +him, in which no one else could give him a moment’s relief, +and, for the sake of it, and because he knew himself to want that +softening of his anger which no voice but hers could effect, he +felt he might so far disregard what she had said as to wait for +her again. He waited, but she had eluded him. She was +gone. On no other night in the year could he so ill have +spared her patient face.</p> +<p>O! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than +to have a home and dread to go to it, through such a cause. +He ate and drank, for he was exhausted—but he little knew +or cared what; and he wandered about in the chill rain, thinking +and thinking, and brooding and brooding.</p> +<p>No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but +Rachael had taken great pity on him years ago, and to her alone +he had opened his closed heart all this time, on the subject of +his <a id="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>miseries; and he knew very well that if he were free to +ask her, she would take him. He thought of the home he +might at that moment have been seeking with pleasure and pride; +of the different man he might have been that night; of the +lightness then in his now heavy-laden breast; of the then +restored honour, self-respect, and tranquillity all torn to +pieces. He thought of the waste of the best part of his +life, of the change it made in his character for the worse every +day, of the dreadful nature of his existence, bound hand and +foot, to a dead woman, and tormented by a demon in her +shape. He thought of Rachael, how young when they were +first brought together in these circumstances, how mature now, +how soon to grow old. He thought of the number of girls and +women she had seen marry, how many homes with children in them +she had seen grow up around her, how she had contentedly pursued +her own lone quiet path—for him—and how he had +sometimes seen a shade of melancholy on her blessed face, that +smote him with remorse and despair. He set the picture of +her up, beside the infamous image of last night; and thought, +Could it be, that the whole earthly course of one so gentle, +good, and self-denying, was subjugate to such a wretch as +that!</p> +<p>Filled with these thoughts—so filled that he had an +unwholesome sense of growing larger, of being placed in some new +and diseased relation towards the objects among which he passed, +of seeing the iris round every misty light turn red—he went +home for shelter.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">RACHAEL</span></h3> +<p>A <span class="smcap">candle</span> faintly burned in the +window, to which the black ladder had often been raised for the +sliding away of all that was most precious in this world to a +striving wife and a brood of hungry babies; and Stephen added to +his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the +casualties of this existence upon earth, not one was dealt out +with so unequal a hand as Death. The inequality of Birth +was nothing to it. For, say that the child of a King and +the child of a Weaver were born to-night in the same moment, what +was that disparity, to the death of any human creature who was +serviceable to, or beloved by, another, while this abandoned +woman lived on!</p> +<p>From the outside of his home he gloomily passed to the inside, +with suspended breath and with a slow footstep. He went up +to his door, opened it, and so into the room.</p> +<p><a id="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>Quiet +and peace were there. Rachael was there, sitting by the +bed.</p> +<p>She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon +the midnight of his mind. She sat by the bed, watching and +tending his wife. That is to say, he saw that some one lay +there, and he knew too well it must be she; but Rachael’s +hands had put a curtain up, so that she was screened from his +eyes. Her disgraceful garments were removed, and some of +Rachael’s were in the room. Everything was in its +place and order as he had always kept it, the little fire was +newly trimmed, and the hearth was freshly swept. It +appeared to him that he saw all this in Rachael’s face, and +looked at nothing besides. While looking at it, it was shut +out from his view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but +not before he had seen how earnestly she looked at him, and how +her own eyes were filled too.</p> +<p>She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying herself that +all was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice.</p> +<p>‘I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are +very late.’</p> +<p>‘I ha’ been walking up an’ down.’</p> +<p>‘I thought so. But ’tis too bad a night for +that. The rain falls very heavy, and the wind has +risen.’</p> +<p>The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to +the thundering in the chimney, and the surging noise! To +have been out in such a wind, and not to have known it was +blowing!</p> +<p>‘I have been here once before, to-day, Stephen. +Landlady came round for me at dinner-time. There was some +one here that needed looking to, she said. And ‘deed +she was right. All wandering and lost, Stephen. +Wounded too, and bruised.’</p> +<p>He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his head +before her.</p> +<p>‘I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for +that she worked with me when we were girls both, and for that you +courted her and married her when I was her +friend—’</p> +<p>He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low +groan.</p> +<p>‘And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure +and certain that ’tis far too merciful to let her die, or +even so much as suffer, for want of aid. Thou knowest who +said, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first +stone at her!” There have been plenty to do +that. Thou art not the man to cast the last stone, Stephen, +when she is brought so low.’</p> +<p>‘O Rachael, Rachael!’</p> +<p>‘Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward +thee!’ she said, in compassionate accents. ‘I +am thy poor friend, with all my heart and mind.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p64b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Stephen and Rachael in the sick room" +title= +"Stephen and Rachael in the sick room" +src="images/p64s.jpg"> +</a></p> +<p>The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the +neck of the self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still +without showing her. She steeped a piece of linen in a +basin, into which she poured some liquid from a bottle, and laid +it with a gentle hand upon the sore. The three-legged table +had been drawn close to the bedside, and on it there were two +bottles. This was one.</p> +<p>It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands +with his eyes, could read what was printed on it in large +letters. He turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror +seemed to fall upon him.</p> +<p>‘I will stay here, Stephen,’ said Rachael, quietly +resuming her seat, ‘till the bells go Three. +’Tis to be done again at three, and then she may be left +till morning.’</p> +<p>‘But thy rest agen to-morrow’s work, my +dear.’</p> +<p>‘I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, +when I am put to it. ’Tis thou who art in need of +rest—so white and tired. Try to sleep in the chair +there, while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can +well believe. To-morrow’s work is far harder for thee +than for me.’</p> +<p>He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it +seemed to him as if his late angry mood were going about trying +to get at him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; +he trusted to her to defend him from himself.</p> +<p>‘She don’t know me, Stephen; she just drowsily +mutters and stares. I have spoken to her times and again, +but she don’t notice! ’Tis as well so. +When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall have done +what I can, and she never the wiser.’</p> +<p>‘How long, Rachael, is ’t looked for, that +she’ll be so?’</p> +<p>‘Doctor said she would haply come to her mind +to-morrow.’</p> +<p>His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over +him, causing him to shiver in every limb. She thought he +was chilled with the wet. ‘No,’ he said, +‘it was not that. He had had a fright.’</p> +<p>‘A fright?’</p> +<p>‘Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. +When I were thinking. When I—’ It seized +him again; and he stood up, holding by the mantel-shelf, as he +pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook as if it +were palsied.</p> +<p>‘Stephen!’</p> +<p>She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop +her.</p> +<p>‘No! Don’t, please; don’t. Let +me see thee setten by the bed. Let me see thee, a’ so +good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as I see thee when +I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. +Never, never, never!’</p> +<p>He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his +chair. After a time he controlled himself, and, resting +with an elbow on one knee, and his head upon that hand, could +look towards Rachael. Seen across the dim candle with his +moistened eyes, she looked as if she had a glory shining round +her head. He could have believed she had. He did +believe it, as the noise without shook the window, rattled at the +door below, and went about the house clamouring and +lamenting.</p> +<p>‘When she gets better, Stephen, ’tis to be hoped +she’ll leave thee to thyself again, and do thee no more +hurt. Anyways we will hope so now. And now I shall +keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.’</p> +<p>He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary +head; but, by slow degrees as he listened to the great noise of +the wind, he ceased to hear it, or it changed into the working of +his loom, or even into the voices of the day (his own included) +saying what had been really said. Even this imperfect +consciousness faded away at last, and he dreamed a long, troubled +dream.</p> +<p>He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long +been set—but she was not Rachael, and that surprised him, +even in the midst of his imaginary happiness—stood in the +church being married. While the ceremony was performing, +and while he recognized among the witnesses some whom he knew to +be living, and many whom he knew to be dead, darkness came on, +succeeded by the shining of a tremendous light. It broke +from one line in the table of commandments at the altar, and +illuminated the building with the words. They were sounded +through the church, too, as if there were voices in the fiery +letters. Upon this, the whole appearance before him and +around him changed, and nothing was left as it had been, but +himself and the clergyman. They stood in the daylight +before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could +have been brought together into one space, they could not have +looked, he thought, more numerous; and they all abhorred him, and +there was not one pitying or friendly eye among the millions that +were fastened on his face. He stood on a raised stage, +under his own loom; and, looking up at the shape the loom took, +and hearing the burial service distinctly read, he knew that he +was there to suffer death. In an instant what he stood on +fell below him, and he was gone.</p> +<p>—Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, and +to places that he knew, he was unable to consider; but he was +back in those places by some means, and with this condemnation +upon him, that he was never, in this world or the next, through +all the unimaginable ages of eternity, to look on Rachael’s +face or hear her voice. Wandering to and fro, unceasingly, +without hope, and in search of he knew not what (he only knew +that he was doomed to seek it), he was the subject of a nameless, +horrible dread, a mortal fear of one particular shape which +everything took. Whatsoever he looked at, grew into that +form sooner or later. The object of his miserable existence +was to prevent its recognition by any one among the various +people he encountered. Hopeless labour! If he led +them out of rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and closets +where it stood, if he drew the curious from places where he knew +it to be secreted, and got them out into the streets, the very +chimneys of the mills assumed that shape, and round them was the +printed word.</p> +<p>The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the +house-tops, and the larger spaces through which he had strayed +contracted to the four walls of his room. Saving that the +fire had died out, it was as his eyes had closed upon it. +Rachael seemed to have fallen into a doze, in the chair by the +bed. She sat wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. +The table stood in the same place, close by the bedside, and on +it, in its real proportions and appearance, was the shape so +often repeated.</p> +<p>He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and +he was sure it moved. He saw a hand come forth and grope +about a little. Then the curtain moved more perceptibly, +and the woman in the bed put it back, and sat up.</p> +<p>With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, +she looked all round the room, and passed the corner where he +slept in his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner, and +she put her hand over them as a shade, while she looked into +it. Again they went all round the room, scarcely heeding +Rachael if at all, and returned to that corner. He thought, +as she once more shaded them—not so much looking at him, as +looking for him with a brutish instinct that he was +there—that no single trace was left in those debauched +features, or in the mind that went along with them, of the woman +he had married eighteen years before. But that he had seen +her come to this by inches, he never could have believed her to +be the same.</p> +<p>All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless +and powerless, except to watch her.</p> +<p>Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about +nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears, +and her head resting on them. Presently, she resumed her +staring round the room. And now, for the first time, her +eyes stopped at the table with the bottles on it.</p> +<p>Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the +defiance of last night, and moving very cautiously and softly, +stretched out her greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, +and sat for a while considering which of the two bottles she +should choose. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon +the bottle that had swift and certain death in it, and, before +his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth.</p> +<p>Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to +stir. If this be real, and her allotted time be not yet +come, wake, Rachael, wake!</p> +<p>She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and +very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents. The +draught was at her lips. A moment and she would be past all +help, let the whole world wake and come about her with its utmost +power. But in that moment Rachael started up with a +suppressed cry. The creature struggled, struck her, seized +her by the hair; but Rachael had the cup.</p> +<p>Stephen broke out of his chair. ‘Rachael, am I +wakin’ or dreamin’ this dreadfo’ +night?’</p> +<p>‘’Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, +myself. ’Tis near three. Hush! I hear the +bells.’</p> +<p>The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the +window. They listened, and it struck three. Stephen +looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder of her +hair, and the red marks of fingers on her forehead, and felt +assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been +awake. She held the cup in her hand even now.</p> +<p>‘I thought it must be near three,’ she said, +calmly pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the +linen as before. ‘I am thankful I stayed! +’Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! +And now she’s quiet again. The few drops in the basin +I’ll pour away, for ’tis bad stuff to leave about, +though ever so little of it.’ As she spoke, she +drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the +bottle on the hearth.</p> +<p>She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her +shawl before going out into the wind and rain.</p> +<p>‘Thou’lt let me walk wi’ thee at this hour, +Rachael?’</p> +<p>‘No, Stephen. ’Tis but a minute, and +I’m home.’</p> +<p>‘Thou’rt not fearfo’;’ he said it in a +low voice, as they went out at the door; ‘to leave me alone +wi’ her!’</p> +<p>As she looked at him, saying, ‘Stephen?’ he went +down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an +end of her shawl to his lips.</p> +<p>‘Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless +thee!’</p> +<p>‘I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor +friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a +working woman fu’ of faults, there is a deep gulf +set. My little sister is among them, but she is +changed.’</p> +<p>She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and +then they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on +his face.</p> +<p>‘Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou +mak’st me humbly wishfo’ to be more like thee, and +fearfo’ to lose thee when this life is ower, and a’ +the muddle cleared awa’. Thou’rt an Angel; it +may be, thou hast saved my soul alive!’</p> +<p>She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl +still in <a id="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she +saw the working of his face.</p> +<p>‘I coom home desp’rate. I coom home +wi’out a hope, and mad wi’ thinking that when I said +a word o’ complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable +Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the +Poison-bottle on table. I never hurt a livin’ +creetur; but happenin’ so suddenly upon ’t, I thowt, +“How can <i>I</i> say what I might ha’ done to +myseln, or her, or both!”’</p> +<p>She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to +stop him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied +hand, and holding them, and still clasping the border of her +shawl, said hurriedly:</p> +<p>‘But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I +ha’ seen thee, aw this night. In my troublous sleep I +ha’ known thee still to be there. Evermore I will see +thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o’ her, +but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think +o’ anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than +me, shalt be by th’ side on’t. And so I will +try t’ look t’ th’ time, and so I will try +t’ trust t’ th’ time, when thou and me at last +shall walk together far awa’, beyond the deep gulf, in +th’ country where thy little sister is.’</p> +<p>He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. +She bade him good night in a broken voice, and went out into the +street.</p> +<p>The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon +appear, and still blew strongly. It had cleared the sky +before it, and the rain had spent itself or travelled elsewhere, +and the stars were bright. He stood bare-headed in the +road, watching her quick disappearance. As the shining +stars were to the heavy candle in the window, so was Rachael, in +the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his +life.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XIV<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE GREAT MANUFACTURER</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Time</span> went on in Coketown like its +own machinery: so much material wrought up, so much fuel +consumed, so many powers worn out, so much money made. But, +less inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its +varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick, and +made the only stand that ever <i>was</i> made in the place +against its direful uniformity.</p> +<p>‘Louisa is becoming,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +‘almost a young woman.’</p> +<p>Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, not +minding what anybody said, and presently turned out young Thomas +a foot taller than when his father had last taken particular +notice of him.</p> +<p>‘Thomas is becoming,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +‘almost a young man.’</p> +<p>Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was +thinking about it, and there he stood in a long-tailed coat and a +stiff shirt-collar.</p> +<p>‘Really,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘the period +has arrived when Thomas ought to go to Bounderby.’</p> +<p>Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby’s +Bank, made him an inmate of Bounderby’s house, necessitated +the purchase of his first razor, and exercised him diligently in +his calculations relative to number one.</p> +<p>The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of +work on hand, in every stage of development, passed Sissy onward +in his mill, and worked her up into a very pretty article +indeed.</p> +<p>‘I fear, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that +your continuance at the school any longer would be +useless.’</p> +<p>‘I am afraid it would, sir,’ Sissy answered with a +curtsey.</p> +<p>‘I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, knitting his brow, ‘that the result of your +probation there has disappointed me; has greatly disappointed +me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. +M’Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact +knowledge which I looked for. You are extremely deficient +in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is very +limited. You are altogether backward, and below the +mark.’</p> +<p>‘I am sorry, sir,’ she returned; ‘but I know +it is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘yes, I believe +you have tried hard; I have observed you, and I can find no fault +in that respect.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;’ +Sissy very timid here; ‘that perhaps I tried to learn too +much, and that if I had asked to be allowed to try a little less, +I might have—’</p> +<p>‘No, Jupe, no,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his +head in his profoundest and most eminently practical way. +‘No. The course you pursued, you pursued according to +the system—the system—and there is no more to be said +about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your +early life were too unfavourable to the development of your +reasoning powers, and that we began too late. Still, as I +have said already, I am disappointed.’</p> +<p>‘I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, +of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon +you, and of your protection of her.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t shed tears,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘Don’t shed tears. I +don’t complain of you. You are an affectionate, +earnest, good young woman—and—and we must make that +do.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, sir, very much,’ said Sissy, with a +grateful curtsey.</p> +<p>‘You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a generally +pervading way) you are serviceable in the family also; so I +understand from Miss Louisa, and, indeed, so I have observed +myself. I therefore hope,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +‘that you can make yourself happy in those +relations.’</p> +<p>‘I should have nothing to wish, sir, +if—’</p> +<p>‘I understand you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind; ‘you +still refer to your father. I have heard from Miss Louisa +that you still preserve that bottle. Well! If your +training in the science of arriving at exact results had been +more successful, you would have been wiser on these points. +I will say no more.’</p> +<p>He really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for her; +otherwise he held her calculating powers in such very slight +estimation that he must have fallen upon that conclusion. +Somehow or other, he had become possessed by an idea that there +was something in this girl which could hardly be set forth in a +tabular form. Her capacity of definition might be easily +stated at a very low figure, her mathematical knowledge at +nothing; yet he was not sure that if he had been required, for +example, to tick her off into columns in a parliamentary return, +he would have quite known how to divide her.</p> +<p>In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric, the +processes of Time are very rapid. Young Thomas and Sissy +being both at such a stage of their working up, these changes +were effected in a year or two; while Mr. Gradgrind himself +seemed stationary in his course, and underwent no alteration.</p> +<p>Except one, which was apart from his necessary progress +through the mill. Time hustled him into a little noisy and +rather dirty machinery, in a by-comer, and made him Member of +Parliament for Coketown: one of the respected members for ounce +weights and measures, one of the representatives of the +multiplication table, one of the deaf honourable gentlemen, dumb +honourable gentlemen, blind honourable gentlemen, lame honourable +gentlemen, dead honourable gentlemen, to every other +consideration. Else wherefore live we in a Christian land, +eighteen hundred and odd years after our Master?</p> +<p>All this while, Louisa had been passing on, so quiet and +reserved, and so much given to watching the bright ashes at +twilight as they fell into the grate, and became extinct, that +from the period when her father had said she was almost a young +woman—which seemed but yesterday—she had scarcely +attracted his notice again, when he found her quite a young +woman.</p> +<p>‘Quite a young woman,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +musing. ‘Dear me!’</p> +<p>Soon after this discovery, he became more thoughtful than +usual for several days, and seemed much engrossed by one +subject. On a certain night, when he was going out, and +Louisa came to bid him good-bye before his departure—as he +was not to be home until late and she would not see him again +until the morning—he held her in his arms, looking at her +in his kindest manner, and said:</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa, you are a woman!’</p> +<p>She answered with the old, quick, searching look of the night +when she was found at the Circus; then cast down her eyes. +‘Yes, father.’</p> +<p>‘My dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I must speak +with you alone and seriously. Come to me in my room after +breakfast to-morrow, will you?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, father.’</p> +<p>‘Your hands are rather cold, Louisa. Are you not +well?’</p> +<p>‘Quite well, father.’</p> +<p>‘And cheerful?’</p> +<p>She looked at him again, and smiled in her peculiar +manner. ‘I am as cheerful, father, as I usually am, +or usually have been.’</p> +<p>‘That’s well,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. So, +he kissed her and went away; and Louisa returned to the serene +apartment of the hair-cutting character, and leaning her elbow on +her hand, looked again at the short-lived sparks that so soon +subsided into ashes.</p> +<p>‘Are you there, Loo?’ said her brother, looking in +at the door. He was quite a young gentleman of pleasure +now, and not quite a prepossessing one.</p> +<p>‘Dear Tom,’ she answered, rising and embracing +him, ‘how long it is since you have been to see +me!’</p> +<p>‘Why, I have been otherwise engaged, Loo, in the +evenings; and in the daytime old Bounderby has been keeping me at +it rather. But I touch him up with you when he comes it too +strong, and so we preserve an understanding. I say! +Has father said anything particular to you to-day or yesterday, +Loo?’</p> +<p>‘No, Tom. But he told me to-night that he wished +to do so in the morning.’</p> +<p>‘Ah! That’s what I mean,’ said +Tom. ‘Do you know where he is +to-night?’—with a very deep expression.</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Then I’ll tell you. He’s with old +Bounderby. They are having a regular confab together up at +the Bank. Why at the Bank, do you think? Well, +I’ll tell you again. To keep Mrs. Sparsit’s +ears as far off as possible, I expect.’</p> +<p>With her hand upon her brother’s shoulder, Louisa still +stood looking at the fire. Her brother glanced at her face +with greater interest than usual, and, encircling her waist with +his arm, drew her coaxingly to him.</p> +<p><a id="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>‘You are very fond of me, an’t you, +Loo?’</p> +<p>‘Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let such long intervals +go by without coming to see me.’</p> +<p>‘Well, sister of mine,’ said Tom, ‘when you +say that, you are near my thoughts. We might be so much +oftener together—mightn’t we? Always together, +almost—mightn’t we? It would do me a great deal +of good if you were to make up your mind to I know what, +Loo. It would be a splendid thing for me. It would be +uncommonly jolly!’</p> +<p>Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He +could make nothing of her face. He pressed her in his arm, +and kissed her cheek. She returned the kiss, but still +looked at the fire.</p> +<p>‘I say, Loo! I thought I’d come, and just +hint to you what was going on: though I supposed you’d most +likely guess, even if you didn’t know. I can’t +stay, because I’m engaged to some fellows to-night. +You won’t forget how fond you are of me?’</p> +<p>‘No, dear Tom, I won’t forget.’</p> +<p>‘That’s a capital girl,’ said Tom. +‘Good-bye, Loo.’</p> +<p>She gave him an affectionate good-night, and went out with him +to the door, whence the fires of Coketown could be seen, making +the distance lurid. She stood there, looking steadfastly +towards them, and listening to his departing steps. They +retreated quickly, as glad to get away from Stone Lodge; and she +stood there yet, when he was gone and all was quiet. It +seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in +the fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof +Old Time, that greatest and longest-established Spinner of all, +would weave from the threads he had already spun into a +woman. But his factory is a secret place, his work is +noiseless, and his Hands are mutes.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XV<br> +<span class="GutSmall">FATHER AND DAUGHTER</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Although</span> Mr. Gradgrind did not take +after Blue Beard, his room was quite a blue chamber in its +abundance of blue books. Whatever they could prove (which +is usually anything you like), they proved there, in an army +constantly strengthening by the arrival of new recruits. In +that charmed apartment, the most complicated social questions +were cast up, got into exact totals, and finally settled—if +those concerned could only have been brought to know it. As +if an astronomical observatory should be made without any +windows, and the astronomer within should arrange the starry +universe solely by pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in +<i>his</i> Observatory (and there are many like it), had no need +to cast an eye upon the teeming myriads of human beings around +him, but could settle all their destinies on a slate, and wipe +out all their tears with one dirty little bit of sponge.</p> +<p>To this Observatory, then: a stern room, with a deadly +statistical clock in it, which measured every second with a beat +like a rap upon a coffin-lid; Louisa repaired on the appointed +morning. A window looked towards Coketown; and when she sat +down near her father’s table, she saw the high chimneys and +the long tracts of smoke looming in the heavy distance +gloomily.</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa,’ said her father, ‘I +prepared you last night to give me your serious attention in the +conversation we are now going to have together. You have +been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to say, so much +justice to the education you have received, that I have perfect +confidence in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you +are not romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the +strong dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From +that ground alone, I know you will view and consider what I am +going to communicate.’</p> +<p>He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said +something. But she said never a word.</p> +<p>‘Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of +marriage that has been made to me.’</p> +<p>Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. +This so far surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, +‘a proposal of marriage, my dear.’ To which she +returned, without any visible emotion whatever:</p> +<p>‘I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure +you.’</p> +<p>‘Well!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, +after being for the moment at a loss, ‘you are even more +dispassionate than I expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are +not unprepared for the announcement I have it in charge to +make?’</p> +<p>‘I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. +Prepared or unprepared, I wish to hear it all from you. I +wish to hear you state it to me, father.’</p> +<p>Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this +moment as his daughter was. He took a paper-knife in his +hand, turned it over, laid it down, took it up again, and even +then had to look along the blade of it, considering how to go +on.</p> +<p>‘What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly +reasonable. I have undertaken then to let you know +that—in short, that Mr. Bounderby has informed me that he +has long watched your progress with particular interest and +pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ultimately +arrive when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That +time, to which he has so long, and certainly with great +constancy, looked forward, is now come. Mr. Bounderby has +made his proposal of marriage to me, and has entreated me to make +it known to you, and to express his hope that you will take it +into your favourable consideration.’</p> +<p>Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very +hollow. The distant smoke very black and heavy.</p> +<p>‘Father,’ said Louisa, ‘do you think I love +Mr. Bounderby?’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected +question. ‘Well, my child,’ he returned, +‘I—really—cannot take upon myself to +say.’</p> +<p>‘Father,’ pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice +as before, ‘do you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask +nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Father,’ she still pursued, ‘does Mr. +Bounderby ask me to love him?’</p> +<p>‘Really, my dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘it +is difficult to answer your question—’</p> +<p>‘Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father?</p> +<p>‘Certainly, my dear. Because;’ here was +something to demonstrate, and it set him up again; ‘because +the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on the sense in which we +use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not do you the +injustice, and does not do himself the injustice, of pretending +to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I am using synonymous terms) +sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have seen you grow up +under his eyes, to very little purpose, if he could so far forget +what is due to your good sense, not to say to his, as to address +you from any such ground. Therefore, perhaps the expression +itself—I merely suggest this to you, my dear—may be a +little misplaced.’</p> +<p>‘What would you advise me to use in its stead, +father?’</p> +<p>‘Why, my dear Louisa,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +completely recovered by this time, ‘I would advise you +(since you ask me) to consider this question, as you have been +accustomed to consider every other question, simply as one of +tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass +such subjects with irrelevant fancies, and other absurdities that +have no existence, properly viewed—really no +existence—but it is no compliment to you to say, that you +know better. Now, what are the Facts of this case? +You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. +Bounderby is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is +some disparity in your respective years, but in your means and +positions there is none; on the contrary, there is a great +suitability. Then the question arises, Is this one +disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a +marriage? In considering this question, it is not +unimportant to take into account the statistics of marriage, so +far as they have yet been obtained, in England and Wales. I +find, on reference to the figures, that a large proportion of +these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal +ages, and that the elder of these contracting parties is, in +rather more than three-fourths of these instances, the +bridegroom. It is remarkable as showing the wide prevalence +of this law, that among the natives of the British possessions in +India, also in a considerable part of China, and among the +Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet furnished +us by travellers, yield similar results. The disparity I +have mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity, and +(virtually) all but disappears.’</p> +<p>‘What do you recommend, father,’ asked Louisa, her +reserved composure not in the least affected by these gratifying +results, ‘that I should substitute for the term I used just +now? For the misplaced expression?’</p> +<p>‘Louisa,’ returned her father, ‘it appears +to me that nothing can be plainer. Confining yourself +rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact you state to yourself is: +Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he does. +The sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him? I +think nothing can be plainer than that?’</p> +<p>‘Shall I marry him?’ repeated Louisa, with great +deliberation.</p> +<p>‘Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your +father, my dear Louisa, to know that you do not come to the +consideration of that question with the previous habits of mind, +and habits of life, that belong to many young women.’</p> +<p>‘No, father,’ she returned, ‘I do +not.’</p> +<p>‘I now leave you to judge for yourself,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘I have stated the case, as such cases are +usually stated among practical minds; I have stated it, as the +case of your mother and myself was stated in its time. The +rest, my dear Louisa, is for you to decide.’</p> +<p>From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. +As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes +upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering +moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his +breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. +But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial +barriers he had for many years been erecting, between himself and +all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost +cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded +shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too +many and too high for such a leap. With his unbending, +utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the +moment shot away into the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle +with all the lost opportunities that are drowned there.</p> +<p>Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently +towards the town, that he said, at length: ‘Are you +consulting the chimneys of the Coketown works, Louisa?’</p> +<p>‘There seems to be nothing there but languid and +monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts +out, father!’ she answered, turning quickly.</p> +<p>‘Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the +application of the remark.’ To do him justice he did +not, at all.</p> +<p>She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and +concentrating her attention upon him again, said, ‘Father, +I have often thought that life is very short.’—This +was so distinctly one of his subjects that he interposed.</p> +<p>‘It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the +average duration of human life is proved to have increased of +late years. The calculations of various life assurance and +annuity offices, among other figures which cannot go wrong, have +established the fact.’</p> +<p>‘I speak of my own life, father.’</p> +<p>‘O indeed? Still,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +‘I need not point out to you, Louisa, that it is governed +by the laws which govern lives in the aggregate.’</p> +<p>‘While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, +and the little I am fit for. What does it +matter?’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last +four words; replying, ‘How, matter? What matter, my +dear?’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby,’ she went on in a steady, straight +way, without regarding this, ‘asks me to marry him. +The question I have to ask myself is, shall I marry him? +That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so, +father. Have you not?’</p> +<p>‘Certainly, my dear.’</p> +<p>‘Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take +me thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, +father, as soon as you please, that this was my answer. +Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I should wish him +to know what I said.’</p> +<p>‘It is quite right, my dear,’ retorted her father +approvingly, ‘to be exact. I will observe your very +proper request. Have you any wish in reference to the +period of your marriage, my child?’</p> +<p>‘None, father. What does it matter!’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and +taken her hand. But, her repetition of these words seemed +to strike with some little discord on his ear. He paused to +look at her, and, still holding her hand, said:</p> +<p>‘Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you +one question, because the possibility implied in it appeared to +me to be too remote. But perhaps I ought to do so. +You have never entertained in secret any other +proposal?’</p> +<p>‘Father,’ she returned, almost scornfully, +‘what other proposal can have been made to <i>me</i>? +Whom have I seen? Where have I been? What are my +heart’s experiences?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, +reassured and satisfied. ‘You correct me +justly. I merely wished to discharge my duty.’</p> +<p>‘What do <i>I</i> know, father,’ said Louisa in +her quiet manner, ‘of tastes and fancies; of aspirations +and affections; of all that part of my nature in which such light +things might have been nourished? What escape have I had +from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that +could be grasped?’ As she said it, she unconsciously +closed her hand, as if upon a solid object, and slowly opened it +as though she were releasing dust or ash.</p> +<p>‘My dear,’ assented her eminently practical +parent, ‘quite true, quite true.’</p> +<p>‘Why, father,’ she pursued, ‘what a strange +question to ask <i>me</i>! The baby-preference that even I +have heard of as common among children, has never had its +innocent resting-place in my breast. You have been so +careful of me, that I never had a child’s heart. You +have trained me so well, that I never dreamed a child’s +dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my +cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s belief or a +child’s fear.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this +testimony to it. ‘My dear Louisa,’ said he, +‘you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, my dear +girl.’</p> +<p>So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his +embrace, he said, ‘I may assure you now, my favourite +child, that I am made happy by the sound decision at which you +have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very remarkable man; and +what little disparity can be said to exist between you—if +any—is more than counterbalanced by the tone your mind has +acquired. It has always been my object so to educate you, +as that you might, while still in your early youth, be (if I may +so express myself) almost any age. Kiss me once more, +Louisa. Now, let us go and find your mother.’</p> +<p>Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, where the +esteemed lady with no nonsense about her, was recumbent as usual, +while Sissy worked beside her. She gave some feeble signs +of returning animation when they entered, and presently the faint +transparency was presented in a sitting attitude.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, who had waited +for the achievement of this feat with some impatience, +‘allow me to present to you Mrs. Bounderby.’</p> +<p>‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘so you have +settled it! Well, I’m sure I hope your health may be +good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as soon as you are +married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that you +are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as +all girls do. However, I give you <a id="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>joy, my +dear—and I hope you may now turn all your ological studies +to good account, I am sure I do! I must give you a kiss of +congratulation, Louisa; but don’t touch my right shoulder, +for there’s something running down it all day long. +And now you see,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her +shawls after the affectionate ceremony, ‘I shall be +worrying myself, morning, noon, and night, to know what I am to +call him!’</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, solemnly, +‘what do you mean?’</p> +<p>‘Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is +married to Louisa! I must call him something. +It’s impossible,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled +sense of politeness and injury, ‘to be constantly +addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call +him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You +yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well know. Am +I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless +the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled +upon by my relations. Then, what am I to call +him!’</p> +<p>Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the +remarkable emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the +time being, after delivering the following codicil to her remarks +already executed:</p> +<p>‘As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,—and I +ask it with a fluttering in my chest, which actually extends to +the soles of my feet,—that it may take place soon. +Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall never hear +the last of.’</p> +<p>When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had +suddenly turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in +sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards +Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, without looking +at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud and +cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her +altogether.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XVI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">HUSBAND AND WIFE</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Bounderby’s</span> first +disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was occasioned by the +necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could not +make up his mind how to do that, or what the consequences of the +step might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and +baggage, to Lady Scadgers, or would positively refuse to budge +from the premises; whether she would be plaintive or abusive, +tearful or tearing; whether she would break her heart, or break +the looking-glass; Mr. Bounderby could not all foresee. +However, as it must be done, he had no choice but to do it; so, +after attempting several letters, and failing in them all, he +resolved to do it by word of mouth.</p> +<p>On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this +momentous purpose, he took the precaution of stepping into a +chemist’s shop and buying a bottle of the very strongest +smelling-salts. ‘By George!’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘if she takes it in the fainting way, I’ll +have the skin off her nose, at all events!’ But, in +spite of being thus forearmed, he entered his own house with +anything but a courageous air; and appeared before the object of +his misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of coming direct +from the pantry.</p> +<p>‘Good evening, Mr. Bounderby!’</p> +<p>‘Good evening, ma’am, good evening.’ +He drew up his chair, and Mrs. Sparsit drew back hers, as who +should say, ‘Your fireside, sir. I freely admit +it. It is for you to occupy it all, if you think +proper.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t go to the North Pole, ma’am!’ +said Mr. Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, +though short of her former position.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points of a +stiff, sharp pair of scissors, she picked out holes for some +inscrutable ornamental purpose, in a piece of cambric. An +operation which, taken in connexion with the bushy eyebrows and +the Roman nose, suggested with some liveliness the idea of a hawk +engaged upon the eyes of a tough little bird. She was so +steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before she looked +up from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her +attention with a hitch of his head.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +putting his hands in his pockets, and assuring himself with his +right hand that the cork of the little bottle was ready for use, +‘I have no occasion to say to you, that you are not only a +lady born and bred, but a devilish sensible woman.’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ returned the lady, ‘this is indeed +not the first time that you have honoured me with similar +expressions of your good opinion.’</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘I am going to astonish you.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir?’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, +interrogatively, and in the most tranquil manner possible. +She generally wore mittens, and she now laid down her work, and +smoothed those mittens.</p> +<p>‘I am going, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, +‘to marry Tom Gradgrind’s daughter.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I +hope you may be happy, Mr. Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you +may be happy, sir!’ And she said it with such great +condescension as well as with such great compassion for him, that +Bounderby,—far more disconcerted than if she had thrown her +workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the hearthrug,—corked +up the smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and thought, +‘Now confound this woman, who could have even guessed that +she would take it in this way!’</p> +<p>‘I wish with all my heart, sir,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, in a highly superior manner; somehow she seemed, in a +moment, to have established a right to pity him ever afterwards; +‘that you may be in all respects very happy.’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Bounderby, with some +resentment in his tone: which was clearly lowered, though in +spite of himself, ‘I am obliged to you. I hope I +shall be.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Do</i> you, sir!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with +great affability. ‘But naturally you do; of course +you do.’</p> +<p>A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby’s part, +succeeded. Mrs. Sparsit sedately resumed her work and +occasionally gave a small cough, which sounded like the cough of +conscious strength and forbearance.</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am,’ resumed Bounderby, +‘under these circumstances, I imagine it would not be +agreeable to a character like yours to remain here, though you +would be very welcome here.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, dear no, sir, I could on no account think of +that!’ Mrs. Sparsit shook her head, still in her highly +superior manner, and a little changed the small +cough—coughing now, as if the spirit of prophecy rose +within her, but had better be coughed down.</p> +<p>‘However, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, +‘there are apartments at the Bank, where a born and bred +lady, as keeper of the place, would be rather a catch than +otherwise; and if the same terms—’</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to +promise that you would always substitute the phrase, annual +compliment.’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am, annual compliment. If the same +annual compliment would be acceptable there, why, I see nothing +to part us, unless you do.’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘The +proposal is like yourself, and if the position I shall assume at +the Bank is one that I could occupy without descending lower in +the social scale—’</p> +<p>‘Why, of course it is,’ said Bounderby. +‘If it was not, ma’am, you don’t suppose that I +should offer it to a lady who has moved in the society you have +moved in. Not that <i>I</i> care for such society, you +know! But <i>you</i> do.’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby, you are very considerate.’</p> +<p>‘You’ll have your own private apartments, and +you’ll have your coals and your candles, and all the rest +of it, and you’ll have your maid to attend upon you, and +you’ll have your light porter to protect you, and +you’ll be what I take the liberty of considering precious +comfortable,’ said Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, ‘say no +more. In yielding up my trust here, I shall not be freed +from the necessity of eating the bread of dependence:’ she +might have said the sweetbread, for that delicate article in a +savoury brown sauce was her favourite supper: ‘and I would +rather receive it from your hand, than from any other. +Therefore, sir, I accept your offer gratefully, and with many +sincere acknowledgments for past favours. And I hope, +sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an impressively +compassionate manner, ‘I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind +may be all you desire, and deserve!’</p> +<p>Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. +It was in vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in +any of his explosive ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have +compassion on him, as a Victim. She was polite, obliging, +cheerful, hopeful; but, the more polite, the more obliging, the +more cheerful, the more hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, +she; the forlorner Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that +tenderness for his melancholy fate, that his great red +countenance used to break out into cold perspirations when she +looked at him.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight +weeks’ time, and Mr. Bounderby went every evening to Stone +Lodge as an accepted wooer. Love was made on these +occasions in the form of bracelets; and, on all occasions during +the period of betrothal, took a manufacturing aspect. +Dresses were made, jewellery was made, cakes and gloves were +made, settlements were made, and an extensive assortment of Facts +did appropriate honour to the contract. The business was +all Fact, from first to last. The Hours did not go through +any of those rosy performances, which foolish poets have ascribed +to them at such times; neither did the clocks go any faster, or +any slower, than at other seasons. The deadly statistical +recorder in the Gradgrind observatory knocked every second on the +head as it was born, and buried it with his accustomed +regularity.</p> +<p>So the day came, as all other days come to people who will +only stick to reason; and when it came, there were married in the +church of the florid wooden legs—that popular order of +architecture—Josiah Bounderby Esquire of Coketown, to +Louisa eldest daughter of Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of Stone +Lodge, M.P. for that borough. And when they were united in +holy matrimony, they went home to breakfast at Stone Lodge +aforesaid.</p> +<p>There was an improving party assembled on the auspicious +occasion, who knew what everything they had to eat and drink was +made of, and how it was imported or exported, and in what +quantities, and in what bottoms, whether native or foreign, and +all about it. The bridesmaids, down to little Jane +Gradgrind, were, in an intellectual point of view, fit helpmates +for the calculating boy; and there was no nonsense about any of +the company.</p> +<p>After breakfast, the bridegroom addressed them in the +following terms:</p> +<p>‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown. Since you have done my wife and myself the honour +of drinking our healths and happiness, I suppose I must +acknowledge the same; though, as you all know me, and know what I +am, and what my extraction was, you won’t expect a speech +from a man who, when he sees a Post, says “that’s a +Post,” and when he sees a Pump, says “that’s a +Pump,” and is not to be got to call a Post a Pump, or a +Pump a Post, or either of them a Toothpick. If you want a +speech this morning, my friend and father-in-law, Tom Gradgrind, +is a Member of Parliament, and you know where to get it. I +am not your man. However, if I feel a little independent +when I look around this table to-day, and reflect how little I +thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind’s daughter when I was a +ragged street-boy, who never washed his face unless it was at a +pump, and that not oftener than once a fortnight, I hope I may be +excused. So, I hope you like my feeling independent; if you +don’t, I can’t help it. I <i>do</i> feel +independent. Now I have mentioned, and you have mentioned, +that I am this day married to Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has long been +my wish to be so. I have watched her bringing-up, and I +believe she is worthy of me. At the same time—not to +deceive you—I believe I am worthy of her. So, I thank +you, on both our parts, for the good-will you have shown towards +us; and the best wish I can give the unmarried part of the +present company, is this: I hope every bachelor may find as good +a wife as I have found. And I hope every spinster may find +as good a husband as my wife has found.’</p> +<p>Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial +trip to Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might take the +opportunity of seeing how the Hands got on in those parts, and +whether they, too, required to be fed with gold spoons; the happy +pair departed for the railroad. The bride, in passing +down-stairs, dressed for her journey, found Tom waiting for +her—flushed, either with his feelings, or the vinous part +of the breakfast.</p> +<p>‘What a game girl you are, to be such a first-rate +sister, Loo!’ whispered Tom.</p> +<p>She clung to him as she should have clung to some far better +nature that day, and was a little shaken in her reserved +composure for the first time.</p> +<p>‘Old Bounderby’s quite ready,’ said +Tom. ‘Time’s up. Good-bye! I shall +be on the look-out for you, when you come back. I say, my +dear Loo! <span class="smcap">An’t</span> it +uncommonly jolly now!’</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">END OF THE +FIRST BOOK</span></p> +<h2><a id="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>BOOK +THE SECOND<br> +<i>REAPING</i></h2> +<h3>CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="GutSmall">EFFECTS IN THE BANK</span></h3> +<p>A <span class="smcap">sunny</span> midsummer day. There +was such a thing sometimes, even in Coketown.</p> +<p>Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in +a haze of its own, which appeared impervious to the sun’s +rays. You only knew the town was there, because you knew +there could have been no such sulky blotch upon the prospect +without a town. A blur of soot and smoke, now confusedly +tending this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of +Heaven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose +and fell, or changed its quarter: a dense formless jumble, with +sheets of cross light in it, that showed nothing but masses of +darkness:—Coketown in the distance was suggestive of +itself, though not a brick of it could be seen.</p> +<p>The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined +so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so many +shocks. Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as +that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle +them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease +that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. +They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring +children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were +appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such +inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite +justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were +utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not +always make quite so much smoke. Besides Mr. +Bounderby’s gold spoon which was generally received in +Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very popular there. +It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner felt he +was ill-used—that is to say, whenever he was not left +entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for +the consequences of any of his acts—he was sure to come out +with the awful menace, that he would ‘sooner pitch his +property into the Atlantic.’ This had terrified the +Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several +occasions.</p> +<p>However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that +they never had pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but, +on the contrary, had been kind enough to take mighty good care of +it. So there it was, in the haze yonder; and it increased +and multiplied.</p> +<p>The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun +was so bright that it even shone through the heavy vapour +drooping over Coketown, and could not be looked at +steadily. Stokers emerged from low underground doorways +into factory yards, and sat on steps, and posts, and palings, +wiping their swarthy visages, and contemplating coals. The +whole town seemed to be frying in oil. There was a stifling +smell of hot oil everywhere. The steam-engines shone with +it, the dresses of the Hands were soiled with it, the mills +throughout their many stories oozed and trickled it. The +atmosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the breath of the +simoom: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled +languidly in the desert. But no temperature made the +melancholy mad elephants more mad or more sane. Their +wearisome heads went up and down at the same rate, in hot weather +and cold, wet weather and dry, fair weather and foul. The +measured motion of their shadows on the walls, was the substitute +Coketown had to show for the shadows of rustling woods; while, +for the summer hum of insects, it could offer, all the year +round, from the dawn of Monday to the night of Saturday, the +whirr of shafts and wheels.</p> +<p>Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the +passenger more sleepy and more hot as he passed the humming walls +of the mills. Sun-blinds, and sprinklings of water, a +little cooled the main streets and the shops; but the mills, and +the courts and alleys, baked at a fierce heat. Down upon +the river that was black and thick with dye, some Coketown boys +who were at large—a rare sight there—rowed a crazy +boat, which made a spumous track upon the water as it jogged +along, while every dip of an oar stirred up vile smells. +But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind +to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any +of its closer regions without engendering more death than +life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, +when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the +things it looks upon to bless.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the Bank, on +the shadier side of the frying street. Office-hours were +over: and at that period of the day, in warm weather, she usually +embellished with her genteel presence, a managerial board-room +over the public office. Her own private sitting-room was a +story higher, at the window of which post of observation she was +ready, every morning, to greet Mr. Bounderby, as he came across +the road, with the sympathizing recognition appropriate to a +Victim. He had been married now a year; and Mrs. Sparsit +had never released him from her determined pity a moment.</p> +<p>The Bank offered no violence to the wholesome monotony of the +town. It was another red brick house, with black outside +shutters, green inside blinds, a black street-door up two white +steps, a brazen door-plate, and a brazen door-handle full +stop. It was a size larger than Mr. Bounderby’s +house, as other houses were from a size to half-a-dozen sizes +smaller; in all other particulars, it was strictly according to +pattern.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the evening-tide +among the desks and writing implements, she shed a feminine, not +to say also aristocratic, grace upon the office. Seated, +with her needlework or netting apparatus, at the window, she had +a self-laudatory sense of correcting, by her ladylike deportment, +the rude business aspect of the place. With this impression +of her interesting character upon her, Mrs. Sparsit considered +herself, in some sort, the Bank Fairy. The townspeople who, +in their passing and repassing, saw her there, regarded her as +the Bank Dragon keeping watch over the treasures of the mine.</p> +<p>What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit knew as little as they +did. Gold and silver coin, precious paper, secrets that if +divulged would bring vague destruction upon vague persons +(generally, however, people whom she disliked), were the chief +items in her ideal catalogue thereof. For the rest, she +knew that after office-hours, she reigned supreme over all the +office furniture, and over a locked-up iron room with three +locks, against the door of which strong chamber the light porter +laid his head every night, on a truckle bed, that disappeared at +cockcrow. Further, she was lady paramount over certain +vaults in the basement, sharply spiked off from communication +with the predatory world; and over the relics of the current +day’s work, consisting of blots of ink, worn-out pens, +fragments of wafers, and scraps of paper torn so small, that +nothing interesting could ever be deciphered on them when Mrs. +Sparsit tried. Lastly, she was guardian over a little +armoury of cutlasses and carbines, arrayed in vengeful order +above one of the official chimney-pieces; and over that +respectable tradition never to be separated from a place of +business claiming to be wealthy—a row of +fire-buckets—vessels calculated to be of no physical +utility on any occasion, but observed to exercise a fine moral +influence, almost equal to bullion, on most beholders.</p> +<p>A deaf serving-woman and the light porter completed Mrs. +Sparsit’s empire. The deaf serving-woman was rumoured +to be wealthy; and a saying had for years gone about among the +lower orders of Coketown, that she would be murdered some night +when the Bank was shut, for the sake of her money. It was +generally considered, indeed, that she had been due some time, +and ought to have fallen long ago; but she had kept her life, and +her situation, with an ill-conditioned tenacity that occasioned +much offence and disappointment.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit’s tea was just set for her on a pert little +table, with its tripod of legs in an attitude, which she +insinuated after office-hours, into the company of the stern, +leathern-topped, long board-table that bestrode the middle of the +room. The light porter placed the tea-tray on it, knuckling +his forehead as a form of homage.</p> +<p>‘Thank you, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Thank <i>you</i>, ma’am,’ returned the +light porter. He was a very light porter indeed; as light +as in the days when he blinkingly defined a horse, for girl +number twenty.</p> +<p>‘All is shut up, Bitzer?’ said Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘All is shut up, ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘And what,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her +tea, ‘is the news of the day? Anything?’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am, I can’t say that I have heard +anything particular. Our people are a bad lot, ma’am; +but that is no news, unfortunately.’</p> +<p>‘What are the restless wretches doing now?’ asked +Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Merely going on in the old way, ma’am. +Uniting, and leaguing, and engaging to stand by one +another.’</p> +<p>‘It is much to be regretted,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +making her nose more Roman and her eyebrows more Coriolanian in +the strength of her severity, ‘that the united masters +allow of any such class-combinations.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bitzer.</p> +<p>‘Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set +their faces against employing any man who is united with any +other man,’ said Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘They have done that, ma’am,’ returned +Bitzer; ‘but it rather fell through, +ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘I do not pretend to understand these things,’ +said Mrs. Sparsit, with dignity, ‘my lot having been +signally cast in a widely different sphere; and Mr. Sparsit, as a +Powler, being also quite out of the pale of any such +dissensions. I only know that these people must be +conquered, and that it’s high time it was done, once for +all.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, with a +demonstration of great respect for Mrs. Sparsit’s oracular +authority. ‘You couldn’t put it clearer, I am +sure, ma’am.’</p> +<p>As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential +chat with Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught her eye and +seen that she was going to ask him something, he made a pretence +of arranging the rulers, inkstands, and so forth, while that lady +went on with her tea, glancing through the open window, down into +the street.</p> +<p>‘Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?’ asked Mrs. +Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average +day.’ He now and then slided into my lady, instead of +ma’am, as an involuntary acknowledgment of Mrs. +Sparsit’s personal dignity and claims to reverence.</p> +<p>‘The clerks,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully +brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her +left-hand mitten, ‘are trustworthy, punctual, and +industrious, of course?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am, pretty fair, ma’am. With +the usual exception.’</p> +<p>He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in +the establishment, for which volunteer service he received a +present at Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He +had grown into an extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young +man, who was safe to rise in the world. His mind was so +exactly regulated, that he had no affections or passions. +All his proceedings were the result of the nicest and coldest +calculation; and it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit +habitually observed of him, that he was a young man of the +steadiest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied +himself, on his father’s death, that his mother had a right +of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had +asserted that right for her with such a steadfast adherence to +the principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the +workhouse ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed +her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, +because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the +recipient, and secondly, because his only reasonable transaction +in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he +could possibly give, and sell it for as much as he could possibly +get; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in +this is comprised the whole duty of man—not a part of +man’s duty, but the whole.</p> +<p>‘Pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual +exception, ma’am,’ repeated Bitzer.</p> +<p>‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head +over her tea-cup, and taking a long gulp.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Thomas, ma’am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, +ma’am, I don’t like his ways at all.’</p> +<p>‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive +manner, ‘do you recollect my having said anything to you +respecting names?’</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. It’s quite +true that you did object to names being used, and they’re +always best avoided.’</p> +<p>‘Please to remember that I have a charge here,’ +said Mrs. Sparsit, with her air of state. ‘I hold a +trust here, Bitzer, under Mr. Bounderby. However improbable +both Mr. Bounderby and myself might have deemed it years ago, +that he would ever become my patron, making me an annual +compliment, I cannot but regard him in that light. From Mr. +Bounderby I have received every acknowledgment of my social +station, and every recognition of my family descent, that I could +possibly expect. More, far more. Therefore, to my +patron I will be scrupulously true. And I do not consider, +I will not consider, I cannot consider,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +with a most extensive stock on hand of honour and morality, +‘that I <i>should</i> be scrupulously true, if I allowed +names to be mentioned under this roof, that are +unfortunately—most unfortunately—no doubt of +that—connected with his.’</p> +<p>Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and again begged +pardon.</p> +<p>‘No, Bitzer,’ continued Mrs. Sparsit, ‘say +an individual, and I will hear you; say Mr. Thomas, and you must +excuse me.’</p> +<p>‘With the usual exception, ma’am,’ said +Bitzer, trying back, ‘of an individual.’</p> +<p>‘Ah—h!’ Mrs. Sparsit repeated the +ejaculation, the shake of the head over her tea-cup, and the long +gulp, as taking up the conversation again at the point where it +had been interrupted.</p> +<p>‘An individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, +‘has never been what he ought to have been, since he first +came into the place. He is a dissipated, extravagant +idler. He is not worth his salt, ma’am. He +wouldn’t get it either, if he hadn’t a friend and +relation at court, ma’am!’</p> +<p>‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with another +melancholy shake of her head.</p> +<p>‘I only hope, ma’am,’ pursued Bitzer, +‘that his friend and relation may not supply him with the +means of carrying on. Otherwise, ma’am, we know out +of whose pocket <i>that</i> money comes.’</p> +<p>‘Ah—h!’ sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with +another melancholy shake of her head.</p> +<p>‘He is to be pitied, ma’am. The last party I +have alluded to, is to be pitied, ma’am,’ said +Bitzer.</p> +<p>‘Yes, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I +have always pitied the delusion, always.’</p> +<p>‘As to an individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, +dropping his voice and drawing nearer, ‘he is as +improvident as any of the people in this town. And you know +what <i>their</i> improvidence is, ma’am. No one +could wish to know it better than a lady of your eminence +does.’</p> +<p>‘They would do well,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, +‘to take example by you, Bitzer.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, ma’am. But, since you do refer +to me, now look at me, ma’am. I have put by a little, +ma’am, already. That gratuity which I receive at +Christmas, ma’am: I never touch it. I don’t +even go the length of my wages, though they’re not high, +ma’am. Why can’t they do as I have done, +ma’am? What one person can do, another can +do.’</p> +<p>This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any +capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out of +sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand +nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty thousand pounds out of +sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not +accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. +Why don’t you go and do it?</p> +<p>‘As to their wanting recreations, ma’am,’ +said Bitzer, ‘it’s stuff and nonsense. <i>I</i> +don’t want recreations. I never did, and I never +shall; I don’t like ’em. As to their combining +together; there are many of them, I have no doubt, that by +watching and informing upon one another could earn a trifle now +and then, whether in money or good will, and improve their +livelihood. Then, why don’t they improve it, +ma’am! It’s the first consideration of a +rational creature, and it’s what they pretend to +want.’</p> +<p>‘Pretend indeed!’ said Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘I am sure we are constantly hearing, ma’am, till +it becomes quite nauseous, concerning their wives and +families,’ said Bitzer. ‘Why look at me, +ma’am! I don’t want a wife and family. +Why should they?’</p> +<p>‘Because they are improvident,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, +‘that’s where it is. If they were more +provident and less perverse, ma’am, what would they +do? They would say, “While my hat covers my +family,” or “while my bonnet covers my +family,”—as the case might be, +ma’am—“I have only one to feed, and +that’s the person I most like to feed.”’</p> +<p>‘To be sure,’ assented Mrs. Sparsit, eating +muffin.</p> +<p>‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, knuckling +his forehead again, in return for the favour of Mrs. +Sparsit’s improving conversation. ‘Would you +wish a little more hot water, ma’am, or is there anything +else that I could fetch you?’</p> +<p>‘Nothing just now, Bitzer.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, ma’am. I shouldn’t wish to +disturb you at your meals, ma’am, particularly tea, knowing +your partiality for it,’ said Bitzer, craning a little to +look over into the street from where he stood; ‘but +there’s a gentleman been looking up here for a minute or +so, ma’am, and he has come across as if he was going to +knock. That <i>is</i> his knock, ma’am, no +doubt.’</p> +<p>He stepped to the window; and looking out, and drawing in his +head again, confirmed himself with, ‘Yes, +ma’am. Would you wish the gentleman to be shown in, +ma’am?’</p> +<p>‘I don’t know who it can be,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, wiping her mouth and arranging her mittens.</p> +<p>‘A stranger, ma’am, evidently.’</p> +<p>‘What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time of +the evening, unless he comes upon some business for which he is +too late, I don’t know,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +‘but I hold a charge in this establishment from Mr. +Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. If to see him +is any part of the duty I have accepted, I will see him. +Use your own discretion, Bitzer.’</p> +<p>Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit’s +magnanimous words, repeated his knock so loudly that the light +porter hastened down to open the door; while Mrs. Sparsit took +the precaution of concealing her little table, with all its +appliances upon it, in a cupboard, and then decamped up-stairs, +that she might appear, if needful, with the greater dignity.</p> +<p>‘If you please, ma’am, the gentleman would wish to +see you,’ said Bitzer, with his light eye at Mrs. +Sparsit’s keyhole. So, Mrs. Sparsit, who had improved +the interval by touching up her cap, took her classical features +down-stairs again, and entered the board-room in the manner of a +Roman matron going outside the city walls to treat with an +invading general.</p> +<p>The visitor having strolled to the window, and being then +engaged in looking carelessly out, was as unmoved by this +impressive entry as man could possibly be. He stood +whistling to himself with all imaginable coolness, with his hat +still on, and a certain air of exhaustion upon him, in part +arising from excessive summer, and in part from excessive +gentility. For it was to be seen with half an eye that he +was a thorough gentleman, made to the model of the time; weary of +everything, and putting no more faith in anything than +Lucifer.</p> +<p>‘I believe, sir,’ quoth Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you +wished to see me.’</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, turning and removing +his hat; ‘pray excuse me.’</p> +<p>‘Humph!’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she made a +stately bend. ‘Five and thirty, good-looking, good +figure, good teeth, good voice, good breeding, well-dressed, dark +hair, bold eyes.’ All which Mrs. Sparsit observed in +her womanly way—like the Sultan who put his head in the +pail of water—merely in dipping down and coming up +again.</p> +<p>‘Please to be seated, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Thank you. Allow me.’ He placed a +chair for her, but remained himself carelessly lounging against +the table. ‘I left my servant at the railway looking +after the luggage—very heavy train and vast quantity of it +in the van—and strolled on, looking about me. +Exceedingly odd place. Will you allow me to ask you if +it’s <i>always</i> as black as this?’</p> +<p>‘In general much blacker,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, +in her uncompromising way.</p> +<p>‘Is it possible! Excuse me: you are not a native, +I think?’</p> +<p>‘No, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘It +was once my good or ill fortune, as it may be—before I +became a widow—to move in a very different sphere. My +husband was a Powler.’</p> +<p>‘Beg your pardon, really!’ said the +stranger. ‘Was—?’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit repeated, ‘A Powler.’</p> +<p>‘Powler Family,’ said the stranger, after +reflecting a few moments. Mrs. Sparsit signified +assent. The stranger seemed a little more fatigued than +before.</p> +<p>‘You must be very much bored here?’ was the +inference he drew from the communication.</p> +<p>‘I am the servant of circumstances, sir,’ said +Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and I have long adapted myself to the +governing power of my life.’</p> +<p>‘Very philosophical,’ returned the stranger, +‘and very exemplary and laudable, and—’ +It seemed to be scarcely worth his while to finish the sentence, +so he played with his watch-chain wearily.</p> +<p>‘May I be permitted to ask, sir,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, ‘to what I am indebted for the favour +of—’</p> +<p>‘Assuredly,’ said the stranger. ‘Much +obliged to you for reminding me. I am the bearer of a +letter of introduction to Mr. Bounderby, the banker. +Walking through this extraordinarily black town, while they were +getting dinner ready at the hotel, I asked a fellow whom I met; +one of the working people; who appeared to have been taking a +shower-bath of something fluffy, which I assume to be the raw +material—’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit inclined her head.</p> +<p>‘—Raw material—where Mr. Bounderby, the +banker, might reside. Upon which, misled no doubt by the +word Banker, he directed me to the Bank. Fact being, I +presume, that Mr. Bounderby the Banker does <i>not</i> reside in +the edifice in which I have the honour of offering this +explanation?’</p> +<p>‘No, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘he does +not.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you. I had no intention of delivering my +letter at the present moment, nor have I. But strolling on to the +Bank to kill time, and having the good fortune to observe at the +window,’ towards which he languidly waved his hand, then +slightly bowed, ‘a lady of a very superior and agreeable +appearance, I considered that I could not do better than take the +liberty of asking that lady where Mr. Bounderby the Banker +<i>does</i> live. Which I accordingly venture, with all +suitable apologies, to do.’</p> +<p>The inattention and indolence of his manner were sufficiently +relieved, to Mrs. Sparsit’s thinking, by a certain +gallantry at ease, which offered her homage too. Here he +was, for instance, at this moment, all but sitting on the table, +and yet lazily bending over her, as if he acknowledged an +attraction in her that made her charming—in her way.</p> +<p>‘Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and officially +must be,’ said the stranger, whose lightness and smoothness +of speech were pleasant likewise; suggesting matter far more +sensible and humorous than it ever contained—which was +perhaps a shrewd device of the founder of this numerous sect, +whosoever may have been that great man: ‘therefore I may +observe that my letter—here it is—is from the member +for this place—Gradgrind—whom I have had the pleasure +of knowing in London.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated that such +confirmation was quite unnecessary, and gave Mr. +Bounderby’s address, with all needful clues and directions +in aid.</p> +<p>‘Thousand thanks,’ said the stranger. +‘Of course you know the Banker well?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. ‘In +my dependent relation towards him, I have known him ten +years.’</p> +<p>‘Quite an eternity! I think he married +Gradgrind’s daughter?’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, suddenly compressing her +mouth, ‘he had that—honour.’</p> +<p>‘The lady is quite a philosopher, I am told?’</p> +<p>‘Indeed, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. +‘<i>Is</i> she?’</p> +<p>‘Excuse my impertinent curiosity,’ pursued the +stranger, fluttering over Mrs. Sparsit’s eyebrows, with a +propitiatory air, ‘but you know the family, and know the +world. I am about to know the family, and may have much to +do with them. Is the lady so very alarming? Her +father gives her such a portentously hard-headed reputation, that +I have a burning desire to know. Is she absolutely +unapproachable? Repellently and stunningly clever? I +see, by your meaning smile, you think not. You have poured +balm into my anxious soul. As to age, now. +Forty? Five and thirty?’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. ‘A chit,’ +said she. ‘Not twenty when she was +married.’</p> +<p>‘I give you my honour, Mrs. Powler,’ returned the +stranger, detaching himself from the table, ‘that I never +was so astonished in my life!’</p> +<p>It really did seem to impress him, to the utmost extent of his +capacity of being impressed. He looked at his informant for +full a quarter of a minute, and appeared to have the surprise in +his mind all the time. ‘I assure you, Mrs. +Powler,’ he then said, much exhausted, ‘that the +father’s manner prepared me for a grim and stony +maturity. I am obliged to you, of all things, for +correcting so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse my +intrusion. Many thanks. Good day!’</p> +<p>He bowed himself out; and Mrs. Sparsit, hiding in the window +curtain, saw him languishing down the street on the shady side of +the way, observed of all the town.</p> +<p><a id="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>‘What do you think of the gentleman, +Bitzer?’ she asked the light porter, when he came to take +away.</p> +<p>‘Spends a deal of money on his dress, +ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘It must be admitted,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +‘that it’s very tasteful.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, ‘if +that’s worth the money.’</p> +<p>‘Besides which, ma’am,’ resumed Bitzer, +while he was polishing the table, ‘he looks to me as if he +gamed.’</p> +<p>‘It’s immoral to game,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘It’s ridiculous, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, +‘because the chances are against the players.’</p> +<p>Whether it was that the heat prevented Mrs. Sparsit from +working, or whether it was that her hand was out, she did no work +that night. She sat at the window, when the sun began to +sink behind the smoke; she sat there, when the smoke was burning +red, when the colour faded from it, when darkness seemed to rise +slowly out of the ground, and creep upward, upward, up to the +house-tops, up the church steeple, up to the summits of the +factory chimneys, up to the sky. Without a candle in the +room, Mrs. Sparsit sat at the window, with her hands before her, +not thinking much of the sounds of evening; the whooping of boys, +the barking of dogs, the rumbling of wheels, the steps and voices +of passengers, the shrill street cries, the clogs upon the +pavement when it was their hour for going by, the shutting-up of +shop-shutters. Not until the light porter announced that +her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit arouse +herself from her reverie, and convey her dense black +eyebrows—by that time creased with meditation, as if they +needed ironing out-up-stairs.</p> +<p>‘O, you Fool!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, when she was +alone at her supper. Whom she meant, she did not say; but +she could scarcely have meant the sweetbread.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Gradgrind party wanted +assistance in cutting the throats of the Graces. They went +about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits more +hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out +everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for +anything?</p> +<p>Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime +height were attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. +They liked fine gentlemen; they pretended that they did not, but +they did. They became exhausted in imitation of them; and +they yaw-yawed in their speech like them; and they served out, +with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political +economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There never +before was seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus +produced.</p> +<p>Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the +Gradgrind school, there was one of a good family and a better +appearance, with a happy turn of humour which had told immensely +with the House of Commons on the occasion of his entertaining it +with his (and the Board of Directors) view of a railway accident, +in which the most careful officers ever known, employed by the +most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest +mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on the +best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded +thirty-two, by a casualty without which the excellence of the +whole system would have been positively incomplete. Among +the slain was a cow, and among the scattered articles unowned, a +widow’s cap. And the honourable member had so tickled +the House (which has a delicate sense of humour) by putting the +cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious reference +to the Coroner’s Inquest, and brought the railway off with +Cheers and Laughter.</p> +<p>Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better +appearance than himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of +Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the +train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had +then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then +gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere. To +whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one +day, ‘Jem, there’s a good opening among the hard Fact +fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don’t go in +for statistics.’ Jem, rather taken by the novelty of +the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to +‘go in’ for statistics as for anything else. +So, he went in. He coached himself up with a blue-book or +two; and his brother put it about among the hard Fact fellows, +and said, ‘If you want to bring in, for any place, a +handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech, look after +my brother Jem, for he’s your man.’ After a few +dashes in the public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of +political sages approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him +down to Coketown, to become known there and in the +neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had last night shown to +Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his hand; +superscribed, ‘Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, +Coketown. Specially to introduce James Harthouse, +Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.’</p> +<p>Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James +Harthouse’s card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went +down to the Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse +looking out of window, in a state of mind so disconsolate, that +he was already half-disposed to ‘go in’ for something +else.</p> +<p>‘My name, sir,’ said his visitor, ‘is Josiah +Bounderby, of Coketown.’</p> +<p>Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely +looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected.</p> +<p>‘Coketown, sir,’ said Bounderby, obstinately +taking a chair, ‘is not the kind of place you have been +accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me—or +whether you will or not, for I am a plain man—I’ll +tell you something about it before we go any further.’</p> +<p>Mr. Harthouse would be charmed.</p> +<p>‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said +Bounderby. ‘I don’t promise it. First of +all, you see our smoke. That’s meat and drink to +us. It’s the healthiest thing in the world in all +respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of +those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are +not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than +we wear ’em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in +Great Britain and Ireland.’</p> +<p>By way of ‘going in’ to the fullest extent, Mr. +Harthouse rejoined, ‘Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am +entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On +conviction.’</p> +<p>‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Bounderby. +‘Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our +mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. +I’ll state the fact of it to you. It’s the +pleasantest work there is, and it’s the lightest work there +is, and it’s the best-paid work there is. More than +that, we couldn’t improve the mills themselves, unless we +laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we’re +not a-going to do.’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.’</p> +<p>‘Lastly,’ said Bounderby, ‘as to our +Hands. There’s not a Hand in this town, sir, man, +woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That +object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold +spoon. Now, they’re not a-going—none of +’em—ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a +gold spoon. And now you know the place.’</p> +<p>Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree +instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole +Coketown question.</p> +<p>‘Why, you see,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, ‘it +suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man, +particularly with a public man, when I make his +acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. +Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall +respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom +Gradgrind’s letter of introduction. You are a man of +family. Don’t you deceive yourself by supposing for a +moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty +riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and +bobtail.’</p> +<p>If anything could have exalted Jem’s interest in Mr. +Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance. Or, +so he told him.</p> +<p>‘So now,’ said Bounderby, ‘we may shake +hands on equal terms. I say, equal terms, because although +I know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted +myself out of, better than any man does, I am as proud as you +are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now +asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do +you find yourself, and I hope you’re pretty +well.’</p> +<p>The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook +hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby +received the answer with favour.</p> +<p>‘Perhaps you know,’ said he, ‘or perhaps you +don’t know, I married Tom Gradgrind’s daughter. +If you have nothing better to do than to walk up town with me, I +shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter.’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, ‘you anticipate +my dearest wishes.’</p> +<p>They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby +piloted the new acquaintance who so strongly contrasted with him, +to the private red brick dwelling, with the black outside +shutters, the green inside blinds, and the black street door up +the two white steps. In the drawing-room of which mansion, +there presently entered to them the most remarkable girl Mr. +James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and +yet so careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and +proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her husband’s +braggart humility—from which she shrunk as if every example +of it were a cut or a blow; that it was quite a new sensation to +observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than in +manner. Her features were handsome; but their natural play +was so locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their +genuine expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly +self-reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with +her figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently +quite alone—it was of no use ‘going in’ yet +awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all +penetration.</p> +<p>From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the +house itself. There was no mute sign of a woman in the +room. No graceful little adornment, no fanciful little +device, however trivial, anywhere expressed her influence. +Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich, there +the room stared at its present occupants, unsoftened and +unrelieved by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As +Mr. Bounderby stood in the midst of his household gods, so those +unrelenting divinities occupied their places around Mr. +Bounderby, and they were worthy of one another, and well +matched.</p> +<p>‘This, sir,’ said Bounderby, ‘is my wife, +Mrs. Bounderby: Tom Gradgrind’s eldest daughter. Loo, +Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined your +father’s muster-roll. If he is not Tom +Gradgrind’s colleague before long, I believe we shall at +least hear of him in connexion with one of our neighbouring +towns. You observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my +junior. I don’t know what she saw in me to marry me, +but she saw something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn’t +have married me. She has lots of expensive knowledge, sir, +political and otherwise. If you want to cram for anything, +I should be troubled to recommend you to a better adviser than +Loo Bounderby.’</p> +<p>To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more +likely to learn, Mr. Harthouse could never be recommended.</p> +<p>‘Come!’ said his host. ‘If +you’re in the complimentary line, you’ll get on here, +for you’ll meet with no competition. I have never +been in the way of learning compliments myself, and I don’t +profess to understand the art of paying ’em. In fact, +despise ’em. But, your bringing-up was different from +mine; mine was a real thing, by George! You’re a +gentleman, and I don’t pretend to be one. I am Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown, and that’s enough for me. +However, though I am not influenced by manners and station, Loo +Bounderby may be. She hadn’t my +advantages—disadvantages you would call ’em, but I +call ’em advantages—so you’ll not waste your +power, I dare say.’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, turning with a smile to +Louisa, ‘is a noble animal in a comparatively natural +state, quite free from the harness in which a conventional hack +like myself works.’</p> +<p>‘You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,’ she quietly +returned. ‘It is natural that you should.’</p> +<p>He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who had seen +so much of the world, and thought, ‘Now, how am I to take +this?’</p> +<p>‘You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what +Mr. Bounderby has said, to the service of your country. You +have made up your mind,’ said Louisa, still standing before +him where she had first stopped—in all the singular +contrariety of her self-possession, and her being obviously very +ill at ease—‘to show the nation the way out of all +its difficulties.’</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he returned, laughing, +‘upon my honour, no. I will make no such pretence to +you. I have seen a little, here and there, up and down; I +have found it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and as +some confess they have, and some do not; and I am going in for +your respected father’s opinions—really because I +have no choice of opinions, and may as well back them as anything +else.’</p> +<p>‘Have you none of your own?’ asked Louisa.</p> +<p>‘I have not so much as the slightest predilection +left. I assure you I attach not the least importance to any +opinions. The result of the varieties of boredom I have +undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction is too industrious +a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the subject), that +any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other set, and +just as much harm as any other set. There’s an +English family with a charming Italian motto. What will be, +will be. It’s the only truth going!’</p> +<p>This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty—a vice +so dangerous, so deadly, and so common—seemed, he observed, +a little to impress her in his favour. He followed up the +advantage, by saying in his pleasantest manner: a manner to which +she might attach as much or as little meaning as she pleased: +‘The side that can prove anything in a line of units, tens, +hundreds, and thousands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford +the most fun, and to give a man the best chance. I am quite +as much attached to it as if I believed it. I am quite +ready to go in for it, to the same extent as if I believed +it. And what more could I possibly do, if I did believe +it!’</p> +<p>‘You are a singular politician,’ said Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Pardon me; I have not even that merit. We are the +largest party in the state, I assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if we +all fell out of our adopted ranks and were reviewed +together.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting in silence, +interposed here with a project for postponing the family dinner +till half-past six, and taking Mr. James Harthouse in the +meantime on a round of visits to the voting and interesting +notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity. The round of +visits was made; and Mr. James Harthouse, with a discreet use of +his blue coaching, came off triumphantly, though with a +considerable accession of boredom.</p> +<p>In the evening, he found the dinner-table laid for four, but +they sat down only three. It was an appropriate occasion +for Mr. Bounderby to discuss the flavour of the hap’orth of +stewed eels he had purchased in the streets at eight years old; +and also of the inferior water, specially used for laying the +dust, with which he had washed down that repast. He +likewise entertained his guest over the soup and fish, with the +calculation that he (Bounderby) had eaten in his youth at least +three horses under the guise of polonies and saveloys. +These recitals, Jem, in a languid manner, received with +‘charming!’ every now and then; and they probably +would have decided him to ‘go in’ for Jerusalem again +to-morrow morning, had he been less curious respecting +Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Is there nothing,’ he thought, glancing at her as +she sat at the head of the table, where her youthful figure, +small and slight, but <a id="page100"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 100</span>very graceful, looked as pretty as +it looked misplaced; ‘is there nothing that will move that +face?’</p> +<p>Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it was, +in an unexpected shape. Tom appeared. She changed as +the door opened, and broke into a beaming smile.</p> +<p>A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not have +thought so much of it, but that he had wondered so long at her +impassive face. She put out her hand—a pretty little +soft hand; and her fingers closed upon her brother’s, as if +she would have carried them to her lips.</p> +<p>‘Ay, ay?’ thought the visitor. ‘This +whelp is the only creature she cares for. So, +so!’</p> +<p>The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The +appellation was not flattering, but not unmerited.</p> +<p>‘When I was your age, young Tom,’ said Bounderby, +‘I was punctual, or I got no dinner!’</p> +<p>‘When you were my age,’ resumed Tom, ‘you +hadn’t a wrong balance to get right, and hadn’t to +dress afterwards.’</p> +<p>‘Never mind that now,’ said Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Well, then,’ grumbled Tom. +‘Don’t begin with me.’</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, perfectly +hearing this under-strain as it went on; ‘your +brother’s face is quite familiar to me. Can I have +seen him abroad? Or at some public school, +perhaps?’</p> +<p>‘No,’ she resumed, quite interested, ‘he has +never been abroad yet, and was educated here, at home. Tom, +love, I am telling Mr. Harthouse that he never saw you +abroad.’</p> +<p>‘No such luck, sir,’ said Tom.</p> +<p>There was little enough in him to brighten her face, for he +was a sullen young fellow, and ungracious in his manner even to +her. So much the greater must have been the solitude of her +heart, and her need of some one on whom to bestow it. +‘So much the more is this whelp the only creature she has +ever cared for,’ thought Mr. James Harthouse, turning it +over and over. ‘So much the more. So much the +more.’</p> +<p>Both in his sister’s presence, and after she had left +the room, the whelp took no pains to hide his contempt for Mr. +Bounderby, whenever he could indulge it without the observation +of that independent man, by making wry faces, or shutting one +eye. Without responding to these telegraphic +communications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged him much in the course +of the evening, and showed an unusual liking for him. At +last, when he rose to return to his hotel, and was a little +doubtful whether he knew the way by night, the whelp immediately +proffered his services as guide, and turned out with him to +escort him thither.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p100b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Mr. Harthouse dines at the Bounderby’s" +title= +"Mr. Harthouse dines at the Bounderby’s" +src="images/p100s.jpg"> +</a></p> +<h3><a id="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE WHELP</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was very remarkable that a young +gentleman who had been brought up under one continuous system of +unnatural restraint, should be a hypocrite; but it was certainly +the case with Tom. It was very strange that a young +gentleman who had never been left to his own guidance for five +consecutive minutes, should be incapable at last of governing +himself; but so it was with Tom. It was altogether +unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination had been +strangled in his cradle, should be still inconvenienced by its +ghost in the form of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, +beyond all doubt, was Tom.</p> +<p>‘Do you smoke?’ asked Mr. James Harthouse, when +they came to the hotel.</p> +<p>‘I believe you!’ said Tom.</p> +<p>He could do no less than ask Tom up; and Tom could do no less +than go up. What with a cooling drink adapted to the +weather, but not so weak as cool; and what with a rarer tobacco +than was to be bought in those parts; Tom was soon in a highly +free and easy state at his end of the sofa, and more than ever +disposed to admire his new friend at the other end.</p> +<p>Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had been smoking a little +while, and took an observation of his friend. ‘He +don’t seem to care about his dress,’ thought Tom, +‘and yet how capitally he does it. What an easy swell +he is!’</p> +<p>Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch Tom’s eye, +remarked that he drank nothing, and filled his glass with his own +negligent hand.</p> +<p>‘Thank’ee,’ said Tom. +‘Thank’ee. Well, Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have +had about a dose of old Bounderby to-night.’ Tom said +this with one eye shut up again, and looking over his glass +knowingly, at his entertainer.</p> +<p>‘A very good fellow indeed!’ returned Mr. James +Harthouse.</p> +<p>‘You think so, don’t you?’ said Tom. +And shut up his eye again.</p> +<p>Mr. James Harthouse smiled; and rising from his end of the +sofa, and lounging with his back against the chimney-piece, so +that he stood before the empty fire-grate as he smoked, in front +of Tom and looking down at him, observed:</p> +<p>‘What a comical brother-in-law you are!’</p> +<p>‘What a comical brother-in-law old Bounderby is, I think +you mean,’ said Tom.</p> +<p>‘You are a piece of caustic, Tom,’ retorted Mr. +James Harthouse.</p> +<p>There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate +with such a waistcoat; in being called Tom, in such an intimate +way, by such a voice; in being on such off-hand terms so soon, +with such a pair of whiskers; that Tom was uncommonly pleased +with himself.</p> +<p>‘Oh! I don’t care for old Bounderby,’ +said he, ‘if you mean that. I have always called old +Bounderby by the same name when I have talked about him, and I +have always thought of him in the same way. I am not going +to begin to be polite now, about old Bounderby. It would be +rather late in the day.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t mind me,’ returned James; ‘but +take care when his wife is by, you know.’</p> +<p>‘His wife?’ said Tom. ‘My sister +Loo? O yes!’ And he laughed, and took a little +more of the cooling drink.</p> +<p>James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same place and +attitude, smoking his cigar in his own easy way, and looking +pleasantly at the whelp, as if he knew himself to be a kind of +agreeable demon who had only to hover over him, and he must give +up his whole soul if required. It certainly did seem that +the whelp yielded to this influence. He looked at his +companion sneakingly, he looked at him admiringly, he looked at +him boldly, and put up one leg on the sofa.</p> +<p>‘My sister Loo?’ said Tom. ‘<i>She</i> +never cared for old Bounderby.’</p> +<p>‘That’s the past tense, Tom,’ returned Mr. +James Harthouse, striking the ash from his cigar with his little +finger. ‘We are in the present tense, now.’</p> +<p>‘Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, +present tense. First person singular, I do not care; second +person singular, thou dost not care; third person singular, she +does not care,’ returned Tom.</p> +<p>‘Good! Very quaint!’ said his friend. +‘Though you don’t mean it.’</p> +<p>‘But I <i>do</i> mean it,’ cried Tom. +‘Upon my honour! Why, you won’t tell me, Mr. +Harthouse, that you really suppose my sister Loo does care for +old Bounderby.’</p> +<p>‘My dear fellow,’ returned the other, ‘what +am I bound to suppose, when I find two married people living in +harmony and happiness?’</p> +<p>Tom had by this time got both his legs on the sofa. If +his second leg had not been already there when he was called a +dear fellow, he would have put it up at that great stage of the +conversation. Feeling it necessary to do something then, he +stretched himself out at greater length, and, reclining with the +back of his head on the end of the sofa, and smoking with an +infinite assumption of negligence, turned his common face, and +not too sober eyes, towards the face looking down upon him so +carelessly yet so potently.</p> +<p>‘You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, +‘and therefore, you needn’t be surprised that Loo +married old Bounderby. She never had a lover, and the +governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.’</p> +<p>‘Very dutiful in your interesting sister,’ said +Mr. James Harthouse.</p> +<p>‘Yes, but she wouldn’t have been as dutiful, and +it would not have come off as easily,’ returned the whelp, +‘if it hadn’t been for me.’</p> +<p>The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows; but the whelp was +obliged to go on.</p> +<p>‘<i>I</i> persuaded her,’ he said, with an +edifying air of superiority. ‘I was stuck into old +Bounderby’s bank (where I never wanted to be), and I knew I +should get into scrapes there, if she put old Bounderby’s +pipe out; so I told her my wishes, and she came into them. +She would do anything for me. It was very game of her, +wasn’t it?’</p> +<p>‘It was charming, Tom!’</p> +<p>‘Not that it was altogether so important to her as it +was to me,’ continued Tom coolly, ‘because my liberty +and comfort, and perhaps my getting on, depended on it; and she +had no other lover, and staying at home was like staying in +jail—especially when I was gone. It wasn’t as +if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby; but still it was +a good thing in her.’</p> +<p>‘Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so +placidly.’</p> +<p>‘Oh,’ returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, +‘she’s a regular girl. A girl can get on +anywhere. She has settled down to the life, and <i>she</i> +don’t mind. It does just as well as another. +Besides, though Loo is a girl, she’s not a common sort of +girl. She can shut herself up within herself, and +think—as I have often known her sit and watch the +fire—for an hour at a stretch.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, ay? Has resources of her own,’ said +Harthouse, smoking quietly.</p> +<p>‘Not so much of that as you may suppose,’ returned +Tom; ‘for our governor had her crammed with all sorts of +dry bones and sawdust. It’s his system.’</p> +<p>‘Formed his daughter on his own model?’ suggested +Harthouse.</p> +<p>‘His daughter? Ah! and everybody else. Why, +he formed Me that way!’ said Tom.</p> +<p>‘Impossible!’</p> +<p>‘He did, though,’ said Tom, shaking his +head. ‘I mean to say, Mr. Harthouse, that when I +first left home and went to old Bounderby’s, I was as flat +as a warming-pan, and knew no more about life, than any oyster +does.’</p> +<p>‘Come, Tom! I can hardly believe that. A +joke’s a joke.’</p> +<p>‘Upon my soul!’ said the whelp. ‘I am +serious; I am indeed!’ He smoked with great gravity +and dignity for a little while, and then added, in a highly +complacent tone, ‘Oh! I have picked up a little +since. I don’t deny that. But I have done it +myself; no thanks to the governor.’</p> +<p>‘And your intelligent sister?’</p> +<p>‘My intelligent sister is about where she was. She +used to complain to me that she had nothing to fall back upon, +that girls usually fall back upon; and I don’t see how she +is to have got over that since. But <i>she</i> don’t +mind,’ he sagaciously added, puffing at his cigar +again. ‘Girls can always get on, somehow.’</p> +<p>‘Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, for Mr. +Bounderby’s address, I found an ancient lady there, who +seems to entertain great admiration for your sister,’ +observed Mr. James Harthouse, throwing away the last small +remnant of the cigar he had now smoked out.</p> +<p>‘Mother Sparsit!’ said Tom. ‘What! you +have seen her already, have you?’</p> +<p>His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar out of his mouth, +to shut up his eye (which had grown rather unmanageable) with the +greater expression, and to tap his nose several times with his +finger.</p> +<p>‘Mother Sparsit’s feeling for Loo is more than +admiration, I should think,’ said Tom. ‘Say +affection and devotion. Mother Sparsit never set her cap at +Bounderby when he was a bachelor. Oh no!’</p> +<p>These were the last words spoken by the whelp, before a giddy +drowsiness came upon him, followed by complete oblivion. He +was roused from the latter state by an uneasy dream of being +stirred up with a boot, and also of a voice saying: ‘Come, +it’s late. Be off!’</p> +<p>‘Well!’ he said, scrambling from the sofa. +‘I must take my leave of you though. I say. +Yours is very good tobacco. But it’s too +mild.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, it’s too mild,’ returned his +entertainer.</p> +<p>‘It’s—it’s ridiculously mild,’ +said Tom. ‘Where’s the door! Good +night!’</p> +<p>He had another odd dream of being taken by a waiter +through a mist, which, after giving him some trouble and +difficulty, resolved itself into the main street, in which he +stood alone. He then walked home pretty easily, though not +yet free from an impression of the presence and influence of his +new friend—as if he were lounging somewhere in the air, in +the same negligent attitude, regarding him with the same +look.</p> +<p><a id="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>The +whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense +of what he had done that night, and had been less of a whelp and +more of a brother, he might have turned short on the road, might +have gone down to the ill-smelling river that was dyed black, +might have gone to bed in it for good and all, and have curtained +his head for ever with its filthy waters.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MEN AND BROTHERS</span></h3> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Oh</span>, my friends, the +down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my friends and +fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a grinding +despotism! Oh, my friends and fellow-sufferers, and +fellow-workmen, and fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is +come, when we must rally round one another as One united power, +and crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have battened +upon the plunder of our families, upon the sweat of our brows, +upon the labour of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, +upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon the +holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood!’</p> +<p>‘Good!’ ‘Hear, hear, +hear!’ ‘Hurrah!’ and other cries, arose +in many voices from various parts of the densely crowded and +suffocatingly close Hall, in which the orator, perched on a +stage, delivered himself of this and what other froth and fume he +had in him. He had declaimed himself into a violent heat, +and was as hoarse as he was hot. By dint of roaring at the +top of his voice under a flaring gaslight, clenching his fists, +knitting his brows, setting his teeth, and pounding with his +arms, he had taken so much out of himself by this time, that he +was brought to a stop, and called for a glass of water.</p> +<p>As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with his +drink of water, the comparison between the orator and the crowd +of attentive faces turned towards him, was extremely to his +disadvantage. Judging him by Nature’s evidence, he +was above the mass in very little but the stage on which he +stood. In many great respects he was essentially below +them. He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not +so good-humoured; he substituted cunning for their simplicity, +and passion for their safe solid sense. An ill-made, +high-shouldered man, with lowering brows, and his features +crushed into an habitually sour expression, he contrasted most +unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of +his hearers in their plain working clothes. Strange as it +always is to consider any assembly in the act of submissively +resigning itself to the dreariness of some complacent person, +lord or commoner, whom three-fourths of it could, by no human +means, raise out of the slough of inanity to their own +intellectual level, it was particularly strange, and it was even +particularly affecting, to see this crowd of earnest faces, whose +honesty in the main no competent observer free from bias could +doubt, so agitated by such a leader.</p> +<p>Good! Hear, hear! Hurrah! The eagerness both +of attention and intention, exhibited in all the countenances, +made them a most impressive sight. There was no +carelessness, no languor, no idle curiosity; none of the many +shades of indifference to be seen in all other assemblies, +visible for one moment there. That every man felt his +condition to be, somehow or other, worse than it might be; that +every man considered it incumbent on him to join the rest, +towards the making of it better; that every man felt his only +hope to be in his allying himself to the comrades by whom he was +surrounded; and that in this belief, right or wrong (unhappily +wrong then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, +faithfully in earnest; must have been as plain to any one who +chose to see what was there, as the bare beams of the roof and +the whitened brick walls. Nor could any such spectator fail +to know in his own breast, that these men, through their very +delusions, showed great qualities, susceptible of being turned to +the happiest and best account; and that to pretend (on the +strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried) that they +went astray wholly without cause, and of their own irrational +wills, was to pretend that there could be smoke without fire, +death without birth, harvest without seed, anything or everything +produced from nothing.</p> +<p>The orator having refreshed himself, wiped his corrugated +forehead from left to right several times with his handkerchief +folded into a pad, and concentrated all his revived forces, in a +sneer of great disdain and bitterness.</p> +<p>‘But oh, my friends and brothers! Oh, men and +Englishmen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! What +shall we say of that man—that working-man, that I should +find it necessary so to libel the glorious name—who, being +practically and well acquainted with the grievances and wrongs of +you, the injured pith and marrow of this land, and having heard +you, with a noble and majestic unanimity that will make Tyrants +tremble, resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the United +Aggregate Tribunal, and to abide by the injunctions issued by +that body for your benefit, whatever they may be—what, I +ask you, will you say of that working-man, since such I must +acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his post, and +sells his flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and a craven +and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to make to +you the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold +himself aloof, and will <i>not</i> be one of those associated in +the gallant stand for Freedom and for Right?’</p> +<p>The assembly was divided at this point. There were some +groans and hisses, but the general sense of honour was much too +strong for the condemnation of a man unheard. ‘Be +sure you’re right, Slackbridge!’ ‘Put him +up!’ ‘Let’s hear him!’ Such +things were said on many sides. Finally, one strong voice +called out, ‘Is the man heer? If the man’s +heer, Slackbridge, let’s hear the man himseln, ’stead +o’ yo.’ Which was received with a round of +applause.</p> +<p>Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a withering +smile; and, holding out his right hand at arm’s length (as +the manner of all Slackbridges is), to still the thundering sea, +waited until there was a profound silence.</p> +<p>‘Oh, my friends and fellow-men!’ said Slackbridge +then, shaking his head with violent scorn, ‘I do not wonder +that you, the prostrate sons of labour, are incredulous of the +existence of such a man. But he who sold his birthright for +a mess of pottage existed, and Judas Iscariot existed, and +Castlereagh existed, and this man exists!’</p> +<p>Here, a brief press and confusion near the stage, ended in the +man himself standing at the orator’s side before the +concourse. He was pale and a little moved in the +face—his lips especially showed it; but he stood quiet, +with his left hand at his chin, waiting to be heard. There +was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and this functionary +now took the case into his own hands.</p> +<p>‘My friends,’ said he, ‘by virtue o’ +my office as your president, I askes o’ our friend +Slackbridge, who may be a little over hetter in this business, to +take his seat, whiles this man Stephen Blackpool is heern. +You all know this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him +awlung o’ his misfort’ns, and his good +name.’</p> +<p>With that, the chairman shook him frankly by the hand, and sat +down again. Slackbridge likewise sat down, wiping his hot +forehead—always from left to right, and never the reverse +way.</p> +<p>‘My friends,’ Stephen began, in the midst of a +dead calm; ‘I ha’ hed what’s been spok’n +o’ me, and ’tis lickly that I shan’t mend +it. But I’d liefer you’d hearn the truth +concernin myseln, fro my lips than fro onny other man’s, +though I never cud’n speak afore so monny, wi’out +bein moydert and muddled.’</p> +<p>Slackbridge shook his head as if he would shake it off, in his +bitterness.</p> +<p>‘I’m th’ one single Hand in +Bounderby’s mill, o’ a’ the men theer, as +don’t coom in wi’ th’ proposed +reg’lations. I canna coom in wi’ +’em. My friends, I doubt their doin’ yo onny +good. Licker they’ll do yo hurt.’</p> +<p>Slackbridge laughed, folded his arms, and frowned +sarcastically.</p> +<p>‘But ’t an’t sommuch for that as I stands +out. If that were aw, I’d coom in wi’ th’ +rest. But I ha’ my reasons—mine, yo +see—for being hindered; not on’y now, but +awlus—awlus—life long!’</p> +<p>Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside him, gnashing and +tearing. ‘Oh, my friends, what but this did I tell +you? Oh, my fellow-countrymen, what warning but this did I +give you? And how shows this recreant conduct in a man on +whom unequal laws are known to have fallen heavy? Oh, you +Englishmen, I ask you how does this subornation show in one of +yourselves, who is thus consenting to his own undoing and to +yours, and to your children’s and your children’s +children’s?’</p> +<p>There was some applause, and some crying of Shame upon the +man; but the greater part of the audience were quiet. They +looked at Stephen’s worn face, rendered more pathetic by +the homely emotions it evinced; and, in the kindness of their +nature, they were more sorry than indignant.</p> +<p>‘’Tis this Delegate’s trade for t’ +speak,’ said Stephen, ‘an’ he’s paid for +’t, an’ he knows his work. Let him keep to +’t. Let him give no heed to what I ha had’n to +bear. That’s not for him. That’s not for +nobbody but me.’</p> +<p>There was a propriety, not to say a dignity in these words, +that made the hearers yet more quiet and attentive. The +same strong voice called out, ‘Slackbridge, let the man be +heern, and howd thee tongue!’ Then the place was +wonderfully still.</p> +<p>‘My brothers,’ said Stephen, whose low voice was +distinctly heard, ‘and my fellow-workmen—for that yo +are to me, though not, as I knows on, to this delegate +here—I ha but a word to sen, and I could sen nommore if I +was to speak till Strike o’ day. I know weel, aw +what’s afore me. I know weel that yo aw resolve to ha +nommore ado wi’ a man who is not wi’ yo in this +matther. I know weel that if I was a lyin parisht i’ +th’ road, yo’d feel it right to pass me by, as a +forrenner and stranger. What I ha getn, I mun mak th’ +best on.’</p> +<p>‘Stephen Blackpool,’ said the chairman, rising, +‘think on ’t agen. Think on ’t once agen, +lad, afore thou’rt shunned by aw owd friends.’</p> +<p>There was an universal murmur to the same effect, though no +man articulated a word. Every eye was fixed on +Stephen’s face. To repent of his determination, would +be to take a load from all their minds. He looked around +him, and knew that it was so. Not a grain of anger with +them was in his heart; he knew them, far below their surface +weaknesses and misconceptions, as no one but their +fellow-labourer could.</p> +<p>‘I ha thowt on ’t, above a bit, sir. I +simply canna coom in. I mun go th’ way as lays afore +me. I mun tak my leave o’ aw heer.’</p> +<p>He made a sort of reverence to them by holding up his arms, +and stood for the moment in that attitude; not speaking until +they slowly dropped at his sides.</p> +<p>‘Monny’s the pleasant word as soom heer has +spok’n wi’ me; monny’s the face I see heer, as +I first seen when I were yoong and lighter heart’n than +now. I ha’ never had no fratch afore, sin ever I were +born, wi’ any o’ my like; Gonnows I ha’ none +now that’s o’ my makin’. Yo’ll +ca’ me traitor and that—yo I mean t’ +say,’ addressing Slackbridge, ‘but ’tis easier +to ca’ than mak’ out. So let be.’</p> +<p>He had moved away a pace or two to come down from the +platform, when he remembered something he had not said, and +returned again.</p> +<p>‘Haply,’ he said, turning his furrowed face slowly +about, that he might as it were individually address the whole +audience, those both near and distant; ‘haply, when this +question has been tak’n up and discoosed, there’ll be +a threat to turn out if I’m let to work among yo. I +hope I shall die ere ever such a time cooms, and I shall work +solitary among yo unless it cooms—truly, I mun do ’t, +my friends; not to brave yo, but to live. I ha nobbut work +to live by; and wheerever can I go, I who ha worked sin I were no +heighth at aw, in Coketown heer? I mak’ no complaints +o’ bein turned to the wa’, o’ bein outcasten +and overlooken fro this time forrard, but hope I shall be let to +work. If there is any right for me at aw, my friends, I +think ’tis that.’</p> +<p>Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was audible in the +building, but the slight rustle of men moving a little apart, all +along the centre of the room, to open a means of passing out, to +the man with whom they had all bound themselves to renounce +companionship. Looking at no one, and going his way with a +lowly steadiness upon him that asserted nothing and sought +nothing, Old Stephen, with all his troubles on his head, left the +scene.</p> +<p>Then Slackbridge, who had kept his oratorical arm extended +during the going out, as if he were repressing with infinite +solicitude and by a wonderful moral power the vehement passions +of the multitude, applied himself to raising their spirits. +Had not the Roman Brutus, oh, my British countrymen, condemned +his son to death; and had not the Spartan mothers, oh my soon to +be victorious friends, driven their flying children on the points +of their enemies’ swords? Then was it not the sacred +duty of the men of Coketown, with forefathers before them, an +admiring world in company with them, and a posterity to come +after them, to hurl out traitors from the tents they had pitched +in a sacred and a God-like cause? The winds of heaven +answered Yes; and bore Yes, east, west, north, and south. +And consequently three cheers for the United Aggregate +Tribunal!</p> +<p>Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. The +multitude of doubtful faces (a little conscience-stricken) +brightened at the sound, and took it up. Private feeling +must yield to the common cause. Hurrah! The roof yet +vibrated with the cheering, when the assembly dispersed.</p> +<p>Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of +lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The +stranger in the land who looks into ten thousand faces for some +answering look and never finds it, is in cheering society as +compared with him who passes ten averted faces daily, that were +once the countenances of friends. Such experience was to be +Stephen’s now, in every waking moment of his life; at his +work, on his way to it and from it, at his door, at his window, +everywhere. By general consent, they even avoided that side +of the street on which he habitually walked; and left it, of all +the working men, to him only.</p> +<p>He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating +but little with other men, and used to companionship with his own +thoughts. He had never known before the strength of the +want in his heart for the frequent recognition of a nod, a look, +a word; or the immense amount of relief that had been poured into +it by drops through such small means. It was even harder +than he could have believed possible, to separate in his own +conscience his abandonment by all his fellows from a baseless +sense of shame and disgrace.</p> +<p>The first four days of his endurance were days so long and +heavy, that he began to be appalled by the prospect before +him. Not only did he see no Rachael all the time, but he +avoided every chance of seeing her; for, although he knew that +the prohibition did not yet formally extend to the women working +in the factories, he found that some of them with whom he was +acquainted were changed to him, and he feared to try others, and +dreaded that Rachael might be even singled out from the rest if +she were seen in his company. So, he had been quite alone +during the four days, and had spoken to no one, when, as he was +leaving his work at night, a young man of a very light complexion +accosted him in the street.</p> +<p>‘Your name’s Blackpool, ain’t it?’ +said the young man.</p> +<p>Stephen coloured to find himself with his hat in his hand, in +his gratitude for being spoken to, or in the suddenness of it, or +both. He made a feint of adjusting the lining, and said, +‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘You are the Hand they have sent to Coventry, I +mean?’ said Bitzer, the very light young man in +question.</p> +<p>Stephen answered ‘Yes,’ again.</p> +<p>‘I supposed so, from their all appearing to keep away +from you. Mr. Bounderby wants to speak to you. You +know his house, don’t you?’</p> +<p>Stephen said ‘Yes,’ again.</p> +<p><a id="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>‘Then go straight up there, will you?’ said +Bitzer. ‘You’re expected, and have only to tell +the servant it’s you. I belong to the Bank; so, if +you go straight up without me (I was sent to fetch you), +you’ll save me a walk.’</p> +<p>Stephen, whose way had been in the contrary direction, turned +about, and betook himself as in duty bound, to the red brick +castle of the giant Bounderby.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MEN AND MASTERS</span></h3> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Well</span>, Stephen,’ said +Bounderby, in his windy manner, ‘what’s this I +hear? What have these pests of the earth been doing to +<i>you</i>? Come in, and speak up.’</p> +<p>It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden. A +tea-table was set out; and Mr. Bounderby’s young wife, and +her brother, and a great gentleman from London, were +present. To whom Stephen made his obeisance, closing the +door and standing near it, with his hat in his hand.</p> +<p>‘This is the man I was telling you about, +Harthouse,’ said Mr. Bounderby. The gentleman he +addressed, who was talking to Mrs. Bounderby on the sofa, got up, +saying in an indolent way, ‘Oh really?’ and dawdled +to the hearthrug where Mr. Bounderby stood.</p> +<p>‘Now,’ said Bounderby, ‘speak up!’</p> +<p>After the four days he had passed, this address fell rudely +and discordantly on Stephen’s ear. Besides being a +rough handling of his wounded mind, it seemed to assume that he +really was the self-interested deserter he had been called.</p> +<p>‘What were it, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘as yo +were pleased to want wi’ me?’</p> +<p>‘Why, I have told you,’ returned Bounderby. +‘Speak up like a man, since you are a man, and tell us +about yourself and this Combination.’</p> +<p>‘Wi’ yor pardon, sir,’ said Stephen +Blackpool, ‘I ha’ nowt to sen about it.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a Wind, +finding something in his way here, began to blow at it +directly.</p> +<p>‘Now, look here, Harthouse,’ said he, +‘here’s a specimen of ’em. When this man +was here once before, I warned this man against the mischievous +strangers who are always about—and who ought to be hanged +wherever they are found—and I told this man that he was +going in the wrong direction. Now, would you believe it, +that although they have put this mark upon him, he is such a +slave to them still, that he’s afraid to open his lips +about them?’</p> +<p>‘I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir; not as I was +fearfo’ o’ openin’ my lips.’</p> +<p>‘You said! Ah! <i>I</i> know what you said; +more than that, I know what you mean, you see. Not always +the same thing, by the Lord Harry! Quite different +things. You had better tell us at once, that that fellow +Slackbridge is not in the town, stirring up the people to mutiny; +and that he is not a regular qualified leader of the people: that +is, a most confounded scoundrel. You had better tell us so +at once; you can’t deceive me. You want to tell us +so. Why don’t you?’</p> +<p>‘I’m as sooary as yo, sir, when the people’s +leaders is bad,’ said Stephen, shaking his head. +‘They taks such as offers. Haply ’tis na’ +the sma’est o’ their misfortuns when they can get no +better.’</p> +<p>The wind began to get boisterous.</p> +<p>‘Now, you’ll think this pretty well, +Harthouse,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘You’ll +think this tolerably strong. You’ll say, upon my soul +this is a tidy specimen of what my friends have to deal with; but +this is nothing, sir! You shall hear me ask this man a +question. Pray, Mr. Blackpool’—wind springing +up very fast—‘may I take the liberty of asking you +how it happens that you refused to be in this +Combination?’</p> +<p>‘How ’t happens?’</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the +arms of his coat, and jerking his head and shutting his eyes in +confidence with the opposite wall: ‘how it +happens.’</p> +<p>‘I’d leefer not coom to ’t, sir; but sin you +put th’ question—an’ not want’n t’ +be ill-manner’n—I’ll answer. I ha passed +a promess.’</p> +<p>‘Not to me, you know,’ said Bounderby. +(Gusty weather with deceitful calms. One now +prevailing.)</p> +<p>‘O no, sir. Not to yo.’</p> +<p>‘As for me, any consideration for me has had just +nothing at all to do with it,’ said Bounderby, still in +confidence with the wall. ‘If only Josiah Bounderby +of Coketown had been in question, you would have joined and made +no bones about it?’</p> +<p>‘Why yes, sir. ’Tis true.’</p> +<p>‘Though he knows,’ said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing +a gale, ‘that there are a set of rascals and rebels whom +transportation is too good for! Now, Mr. Harthouse, you +have been knocking about in the world some time. Did you +ever meet with anything like that man out of this blessed +country?’ And Mr. Bounderby pointed him out for +inspection, with an angry finger.</p> +<p>‘Nay, ma’am,’ said Stephen Blackpool, +staunchly protesting against the words that had been used, and +instinctively addressing himself to Louisa, after glancing at her +face. ‘Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt +o’ th’ kind, ma’am, nowt o’ th’ +kind. They’ve not doon me a kindness, ma’am, as +I know and feel. But there’s not a dozen men amoong +’em, ma’am—a dozen? Not six—but +what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest and by +himseln. God forbid as I, that ha’ known, and +had’n experience o’ these men aw my life—I, +that ha’ ett’n an’ droonken wi’ +’em, an’ seet’n wi’ ’em, and +toil’n wi’ ’em, and lov’n ’em, +should fail fur to stan by ’em wi’ the truth, let +’em ha’ doon to me what they may!’</p> +<p>He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and +character—deepened perhaps by a proud consciousness that he +was faithful to his class under all their mistrust; but he fully +remembered where he was, and did not even raise his voice.</p> +<p>‘No, ma’am, no. They’re true to one +another, faithfo’ to one another, ’fectionate to one +another, e’en to death. Be poor amoong ’em, be +sick amoong ’em, grieve amoong ’em for onny o’ +th’ monny causes that carries grief to the poor man’s +door, an’ they’ll be tender wi’ yo, gentle +wi’ yo, comfortable wi’ yo, Chrisen wi’ +yo. Be sure o’ that, ma’am. They’d +be riven to bits, ere ever they’d be different.’</p> +<p>‘In short,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘it’s +because they are so full of virtues that they have turned you +adrift. Go through with it while you are about it. +Out with it.’</p> +<p>‘How ’tis, ma’am,’ resumed Stephen, +appearing still to find his natural refuge in Louisa’s +face, ‘that what is best in us fok, seems to turn us most +to trouble an’ misfort’n an’ mistake, I +dunno. But ’tis so. I know ’tis, as I +know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke. We’re +patient too, an’ wants in general to do right. +An’ I canna think the fawt is aw wi’ us.’</p> +<p>‘Now, my friend,’ said Mr. Bounderby, whom he +could not have exasperated more, quite unconscious of it though +he was, than by seeming to appeal to any one else, ‘if you +will favour me with your attention for half a minute, I should +like to have a word or two with you. You said just now, +that you had nothing to tell us about this business. You +are quite sure of that before we go any further.’</p> +<p>‘Sir, I am sure on ’t.’</p> +<p>‘Here’s a gentleman from London present,’ +Mr. Bounderby made a backhanded point at Mr. James Harthouse with +his thumb, ‘a Parliament gentleman. I should like him +to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and me, instead of +taking the substance of it—for I know precious well, +beforehand, what it will be; nobody knows better than I do, take +notice!—instead of receiving it on trust from my +mouth.’</p> +<p>Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed +a rather more troubled mind than usual. He turned his eyes +involuntarily to his former refuge, but at a look from that +quarter (expressive though instantaneous) he settled them on Mr. +Bounderby’s face.</p> +<p>‘Now, what do you complain of?’ asked Mr. +Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘I ha’ not coom here, sir,’ Stephen reminded +him, ‘to complain. I coom for that I were sent +for.’</p> +<p>‘What,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, +‘do you people, in a general way, complain of?’</p> +<p>Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a +moment, and then seemed to make up his mind.</p> +<p>‘Sir, I were never good at showin o ’t, though I +ha had’n my share in feeling o ’t. ’Deed +we are in a muddle, sir. Look round town—so rich as +’tis—and see the numbers o’ people as has been +broughten into bein heer, fur to weave, an’ to card, +an’ to piece out a livin’, aw the same one way, +somehows, ’twixt their cradles and their graves. Look +how we live, an’ wheer we live, an’ in what numbers, +an’ by what chances, and wi’ what sameness; and look +how the mills is awlus a goin, and how they never works us no +nigher to ony dis’ant object—ceptin awlus, +Death. Look how you considers of us, and writes of us, and +talks of us, and goes up wi’ yor deputations to Secretaries +o’ State ’bout us, and how yo are awlus right, and +how we are awlus wrong, and never had’n no reason in us sin +ever we were born. Look how this ha growen an’ +growen, sir, bigger an’ bigger, broader an’ broader, +harder an’ harder, fro year to year, fro generation unto +generation. Who can look on ’t, sir, and fairly tell +a man ’tis not a muddle?’</p> +<p>‘Of course,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Now +perhaps you’ll let the gentleman know, how you would set +this muddle (as you’re so fond of calling it) to +rights.’</p> +<p>‘I donno, sir. I canna be expecten to +’t. ’Tis not me as should be looken to for +that, sir. ’Tis them as is put ower me, and ower aw +the rest of us. What do they tak upon themseln, sir, if not +to do’t?’</p> +<p>‘I’ll tell you something towards it, at any +rate,’ returned Mr. Bounderby. ‘We will make an +example of half a dozen Slackbridges. We’ll indict +the blackguards for felony, and get ’em shipped off to +penal settlements.’</p> +<p>Stephen gravely shook his head.</p> +<p>‘Don’t tell me we won’t, man,’ said +Mr. Bounderby, by this time blowing a hurricane, ‘because +we will, I tell you!’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence +of absolute certainty, ‘if yo was t’ tak a hundred +Slackbridges—aw as there is, and aw the number ten times +towd—an’ was t’ sew ’em up in separate +sacks, an’ sink ’em in the deepest ocean as were made +ere ever dry land coom to be, yo’d leave the muddle just +wheer ’tis. Mischeevous strangers!’ said +Stephen, with an anxious smile; ‘when ha we not heern, I am +sure, sin ever we can call to mind, o’ th’ +mischeevous strangers! ’Tis not by <i>them</i> the +trouble’s made, sir. ’Tis not wi’ +<i>them</i> ’t commences. I ha no favour for +’em—I ha no reason to favour ’em—but +’tis hopeless and useless to dream o’ takin them fro +their trade, ’stead o’ takin their trade fro +them! Aw that’s now about me in this room were heer +afore I coom, an’ will be heer when I am gone. Put +that clock aboard a ship an’ pack it off to Norfolk Island, +an’ the time will go on just the same. So ’tis +wi’ Slackbridge every bit.’</p> +<p>Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he observed a +cautionary movement of her eyes towards the door. Stepping +back, he put his hand upon the lock. But he had not spoken +out of his own will and desire; and he felt it in his heart a +noble return for his late injurious treatment to be faithful to +the last to those who had repudiated him. He stayed to +finish what was in his mind.</p> +<p>‘Sir, I canna, wi’ my little learning an’ my +common way, tell the genelman what will better aw +this—though some working men o’ this town could, +above my powers—but I can tell him what I know will never +do ’t. The strong hand will never do ’t. +Vict’ry and triumph will never do ’t. Agreeing +fur to mak one side unnat’rally awlus and for ever right, +and toother side unnat’rally awlus and for ever wrong, will +never, never do ’t. Nor yet lettin alone will never +do ’t. Let thousands upon thousands alone, aw leading +the like lives and aw faw’en into the like muddle, and they +will be as one, and yo will be as anoother, wi’ a black +unpassable world betwixt yo, just as long or short a time as +sich-like misery can last. Not drawin nigh to fok, +wi’ kindness and patience an’ cheery ways, that so +draws nigh to one another in their monny troubles, and so +cherishes one another in their distresses wi’ what they +need themseln—like, I humbly believe, as no people the +genelman ha seen in aw his travels can beat—will never do +’t till th’ Sun turns t’ ice. Most +o’ aw, rating ’em as so much Power, and +reg’latin ’em as if they was figures in a soom, or +machines: wi’out loves and likens, wi’out memories +and inclinations, wi’out souls to weary and souls to +hope—when aw goes quiet, draggin on wi’ ’em as +if they’d nowt o’ th’ kind, and when aw goes +onquiet, reproachin ’em for their want o’ sitch +humanly feelins in their dealins wi’ yo—this will +never do ’t, sir, till God’s work is +onmade.’</p> +<p>Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting to know +if anything more were expected of him.</p> +<p>‘Just stop a moment,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +excessively red in the face. ‘I told you, the last +time you were here with a grievance, that you had better turn +about and come out of that. And I also told you, if you +remember, that I was up to the gold spoon look-out.’</p> +<p><a id="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>‘I were not up to ’t myseln, sir; I do +assure yo.’</p> +<p>‘Now it’s clear to me,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘that you are one of those chaps who have always got a +grievance. And you go about, sowing it and raising +crops. That’s the business of <i>your</i> life, my +friend.’</p> +<p>Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed he had +other business to do for his life.</p> +<p>‘You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-conditioned chap, +you see,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘that even your own +Union, the men who know you best, will have nothing to do with +you. I never thought those fellows could be right in +anything; but I tell you what! I so far go along with them +for a novelty, that <i>I</i>’ll have nothing to do with you +either.’</p> +<p>Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face.</p> +<p>‘You can finish off what you’re at,’ said +Mr. Bounderby, with a meaning nod, ‘and then go +elsewhere.’</p> +<p>‘Sir, yo know weel,’ said Stephen expressively, +‘that if I canna get work wi’ yo, I canna get it +elsewheer.’</p> +<p>The reply was, ‘What I know, I know; and what you know, +you know. I have no more to say about it.’</p> +<p>Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were raised to +his no more; therefore, with a sigh, and saying, barely above his +breath, ‘Heaven help us aw in this world!’ he +departed.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">FADING AWAY</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was falling dark when Stephen +came out of Mr. Bounderby’s house. The shadows of +night had gathered so fast, that he did not look about him when +he closed the door, but plodded straight along the street. +Nothing was further from his thoughts than the curious old woman +he had encountered on his previous visit to the same house, when +he heard a step behind him that he knew, and turning, saw her in +Rachael’s company.</p> +<p>He saw Rachael first, as he had heard her only.</p> +<p>‘Ah, Rachael, my dear! Missus, thou wi’ +her!’</p> +<p>‘Well, and now you are surprised to be sure, and with +reason I must say,’ the old woman returned. +‘Here I am again, you see.’</p> +<p>‘But how wi’ Rachael?’ said Stephen, falling +into their step, walking between them, and looking from the one +to the other.</p> +<p>‘Why, I come to be with this good lass pretty much as I +came to be with you,’ said the old woman, cheerfully, +taking the reply upon herself. ‘My visiting time is +later this year than usual, for I have been rather troubled with +shortness of breath, and so put it off till the weather was fine +and warm. For the same reason I don’t make all my +journey in one day, but divide it into two days, and get a bed +to-night at the Travellers’ Coffee House down by the +railroad (a nice clean house), and go back Parliamentary, at six +in the morning. Well, but what has this to do with this +good lass, says you? I’m going to tell you. I +have heard of Mr. Bounderby being married. I read it in the +paper, where it looked grand—oh, it looked fine!’ the +old woman dwelt on it with strange enthusiasm: ‘and I want +to see his wife. I have never seen her yet. Now, if +you’ll believe me, she hasn’t come out of that house +since noon to-day. So not to give her up too easily, I was +waiting about, a little last bit more, when I passed close to +this good lass two or three times; and her face being so friendly +I spoke to her, and she spoke to me. There!’ said the +old woman to Stephen, ‘you can make all the rest out for +yourself now, a deal shorter than I can, I dare say!’</p> +<p>Once again, Stephen had to conquer an instinctive propensity +to dislike this old woman, though her manner was as honest and +simple as a manner possibly could be. With a gentleness +that was as natural to him as he knew it to be to Rachael, he +pursued the subject that interested her in her old age.</p> +<p>‘Well, missus,’ said he, ‘I ha seen the +lady, and she were young and hansom. Wi’ fine dark +thinkin eyes, and a still way, Rachael, as I ha never seen the +like on.’</p> +<p>‘Young and handsome. Yes!’ cried the old +woman, quite delighted. ‘As bonny as a rose! +And what a happy wife!’</p> +<p>‘Aye, missus, I suppose she be,’ said +Stephen. But with a doubtful glance at Rachael.</p> +<p>‘Suppose she be? She must be. She’s +your master’s wife,’ returned the old woman.</p> +<p>Stephen nodded assent. ‘Though as to +master,’ said he, glancing again at Rachael, ‘not +master onny more. That’s aw enden ’twixt him +and me.’</p> +<p>‘Have you left his work, Stephen?’ asked Rachael, +anxiously and quickly.</p> +<p>‘Why, Rachael,’ he replied, ‘whether I ha +lef’n his work, or whether his work ha lef’n me, +cooms t’ th’ same. His work and me are +parted. ’Tis as weel so—better, I were thinkin +when yo coom up wi’ me. It would ha brought’n +trouble upon trouble if I had stayed theer. Haply +’tis a kindness to monny that I go; haply ’tis a +kindness to myseln; anyways it mun be done. I mun turn my +face fro Coketown fur th’ time, and seek a fort’n, +dear, by beginnin fresh.’</p> +<p>‘Where will you go, Stephen?’</p> +<p>‘I donno t’night,’ said he, lifting off his +hat, and smoothing his thin hair with the flat of his hand. +‘But I’m not goin t’night, Rachael, nor yet +t’morrow. ’Tan’t easy overmuch t’ +know wheer t’ turn, but a good heart will coom to +me.’</p> +<p>Herein, too, the sense of even thinking unselfishly aided +him. Before he had so much as closed Mr. Bounderby’s +door, he had reflected that at least his being obliged to go away +was good for her, as it would save her from the chance of being +brought into question for not withdrawing from him. Though +it would cost him a hard pang to leave her, and though he could +think of no similar place in which his condemnation would not +pursue him, perhaps it was almost a relief to be forced away from +the endurance of the last four days, even to unknown difficulties +and distresses.</p> +<p>So he said, with truth, ‘I’m more leetsome, +Rachael, under ’t, than I could’n ha +believed.’ It was not her part to make his burden +heavier. She answered with her comforting smile, and the +three walked on together.</p> +<p>Age, especially when it strives to be self-reliant and +cheerful, finds much consideration among the poor. The old +woman was so decent and contented, and made so light of her +infirmities, though they had increased upon her since her former +interview with Stephen, that they both took an interest in +her. She was too sprightly to allow of their walking at a +slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be talked +to, and very willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to +their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than +ever.</p> +<p>‘Come to my poor place, missus,’ said Stephen, +‘and tak a coop o’ tea. Rachael will coom then; +and arterwards I’ll see thee safe t’ thy +Travellers’ lodgin. ’T may be long, Rachael, +ere ever I ha th’ chance o’ thy coompany +agen.’</p> +<p>They complied, and the three went on to the house where he +lodged. When they turned into a narrow street, Stephen +glanced at his window with a dread that always haunted his +desolate home; but it was open, as he had left it, and no one was +there. The evil spirit of his life had flitted away again, +months ago, and he had heard no more of her since. The only +evidence of her last return now, were the scantier moveables in +his room, and the grayer hair upon his head.</p> +<p>He lighted a candle, set out his little tea-board, got hot +water from below, and brought in small portions of tea and sugar, +a loaf, and some butter from the nearest shop. The bread +was new and crusty, the butter fresh, and the sugar lump, of +course—in fulfilment of the standard testimony of the +Coketown magnates, that these people lived like princes, +sir. Rachael made the tea (so large a party necessitated +the borrowing of a cup), and the visitor enjoyed it +mightily. It was the first glimpse of sociality the host +had had for many days. He too, with the world a wide heath +before him, enjoyed the meal—again in corroboration of the +magnates, as exemplifying the utter want of calculation on the +part of these people, sir.</p> +<p>‘I ha never thowt yet, missus,’ said Stephen, +‘o’ askin thy name.’</p> +<p>The old lady announced herself as ‘Mrs. +Pegler.’</p> +<p>‘A widder, I think?’ said Stephen.</p> +<p>‘Oh, many long years!’ Mrs. Pegler’s +husband (one of the best on record) was already dead, by Mrs. +Pegler’s calculation, when Stephen was born.</p> +<p>‘’Twere a bad job, too, to lose so good a +one,’ said Stephen. ‘Onny children?’</p> +<p>Mrs. Pegler’s cup, rattling against her saucer as she +held it, denoted some nervousness on her part. +‘No,’ she said. ‘Not now, not +now.’</p> +<p>‘Dead, Stephen,’ Rachael softly hinted.</p> +<p>‘I’m sooary I ha spok’n on ’t,’ +said Stephen, ‘I ought t’ hadn in my mind as I might +touch a sore place. I—I blame myseln.’</p> +<p>While he excused himself, the old lady’s cup rattled +more and more. ‘I had a son,’ she said, +curiously distressed, and not by any of the usual appearances of +sorrow; ‘and he did well, wonderfully well. But he is +not to be spoken of if you please. He +is—’ Putting down her cup, she moved her hands +as if she would have added, by her action, +‘dead!’ Then she said aloud, ‘I have lost +him.’</p> +<p>Stephen had not yet got the better of his having given the old +lady pain, when his landlady came stumbling up the narrow stairs, +and calling him to the door, whispered in his ear. Mrs. +Pegler was by no means deaf, for she caught a word as it was +uttered.</p> +<p>‘Bounderby!’ she cried, in a suppressed voice, +starting up from the table. ‘Oh hide me! +Don’t let me be seen for the world. Don’t let +him come up till I’ve got away. Pray, +pray!’ She trembled, and was excessively agitated; +getting behind Rachael, when Rachael tried to reassure her; and +not seeming to know what she was about.</p> +<p>‘But hearken, missus, hearken,’ said Stephen, +astonished. ‘’Tisn’t Mr. Bounderby; +’tis his wife. Yo’r not fearfo’ o’ +her. Yo was hey-go-mad about her, but an hour +sin.’</p> +<p>‘But are you sure it’s the lady, and not the +gentleman?’ she asked, still trembling.</p> +<p>‘Certain sure!’</p> +<p>‘Well then, pray don’t speak to me, nor yet take +any notice of me,’ said the old woman. ‘Let me +be quite to myself in this corner.’</p> +<p>Stephen nodded; looking to Rachael for an explanation, which +she was quite unable to give him; took the candle, went +downstairs, and in a few moments returned, lighting Louisa into +the room. She was followed by the whelp.</p> +<p>Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and bonnet +in her hand, when Stephen, himself profoundly astonished by this +visit, put the candle on the table. Then he too stood, with +his doubled hand upon the table near it, waiting to be +addressed.</p> +<p>For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the +dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life +she was face to face with anything like individuality in +connection with them. She knew of their existence by +hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a +given number of them would produce in a given space of +time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their +nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading +infinitely more of the ways of toiling insects than of these +toiling men and women.</p> +<p>Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there +ended; something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and +demand; something that blundered against those laws, and +floundered into difficulty; something that was a little pinched +when wheat was dear, and over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; +something that increased at such a rate of percentage, and +yielded such another percentage of crime, and such another +percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast +fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, +and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; +this she knew the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had +scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of +separating the sea itself into its component drops.</p> +<p>She stood for some moments looking round the room. From +the few chairs, the few books, the common prints, and the bed, +she glanced to the two women, and to Stephen.</p> +<p>‘I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what +passed just now. I should like to be serviceable to you, if +you will let me. Is this your wife?’</p> +<p>Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently answered no, +and dropped again.</p> +<p>‘I remember,’ said Louisa, reddening at her +mistake; ‘I recollect, now, to have heard your domestic +misfortunes spoken of, though I was not attending to the +particulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask a +question that would give pain to any one here. If I should +ask any other question that may happen to have that result, give +me credit, if you please, for being in ignorance how to speak to +you as I ought.’</p> +<p>As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed +himself to her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to +Rachael. Her manner was short and abrupt, yet faltering and +timid.</p> +<p>‘He has told you what has passed between himself and my +husband? You would be his first resource, I +think.’</p> +<p>‘I have heard the end of it, young lady,’ said +Rachael.</p> +<p>‘Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, +he would probably be rejected by all? I thought he said as +much?’</p> +<p>‘The chances are very small, young lady—next to +nothing—for a man who gets a bad name among +them.’</p> +<p>‘What shall I understand that you mean by a bad +name?’</p> +<p>‘The name of being troublesome.’</p> +<p>‘Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the +prejudices of the other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the +two so deeply separated in this town, that there is no place +whatever for an honest workman between them?’</p> +<p>Rachael shook her head in silence.</p> +<p>‘He fell into suspicion,’ said Louisa, ‘with +his fellow-weavers, because—he had made a promise not to be +one of them. I think it must have been to you that he made +that promise. Might I ask you why he made it?’</p> +<p>Rachael burst into tears. ‘I didn’t seek it +of him, poor lad. I prayed him to avoid trouble for his own +good, little thinking he’d come to it through me. But +I know he’d die a hundred deaths, ere ever he’d break +his word. I know that of him well.’</p> +<p>Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual +thoughtful attitude, with his hand at his chin. He now +spoke in a voice rather less steady than usual.</p> +<p>‘No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, +an’ what love, an’ respect, I bear to Rachael, or +wi’ what cause. When I passed that promess, I towd +her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. +’Twere a solemn promess. ’Tis gone fro’ +me, for ever.’</p> +<p>Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference +that was new in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and +her features softened. ‘What will you do?’ she +asked him. And her voice had softened too.</p> +<p>‘Weel, ma’am,’ said Stephen, making the best +of it, with a smile; ‘when I ha finished off, I mun quit +this part, and try another. Fortnet or misfortnet, a man +can but try; there’s nowt to be done wi’out +tryin’—cept laying down and dying.’</p> +<p>‘How will you travel?’</p> +<p>‘Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.’</p> +<p>Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The +rustling of a bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid +it on the table.</p> +<p>‘Rachael, will you tell him—for you know how, +without offence—that this is freely his, to help him on his +way? Will you entreat him to take it?’</p> +<p>‘I canna do that, young lady,’ she answered, +turning her head aside. ‘Bless you for thinking +o’ the poor lad wi’ such tenderness. But +’tis for him to know his heart, and what is right according +to it.’</p> +<p>Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in +part overcome with quick sympathy, when this man of so much +self-command, who had been so plain and steady through the late +interview, lost his composure in a moment, and now stood with his +hand before his face. She stretched out hers, as if she +would have touched him; then checked herself, and remained +still.</p> +<p>‘Not e’en Rachael,’ said Stephen, when he +stood again with his face uncovered, ‘could mak sitch a +kind offerin, by onny words, kinder. T’ show that +I’m not a man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll +tak two pound. I’ll borrow ’t for t’ pay +’t back. ’Twill be the sweetest work as ever I +ha done, that puts it in my power t’ acknowledge once more +my lastin thankfulness for this present action.’</p> +<p>She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the +much smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor +handsome, nor picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of +accepting it, and of expressing his thanks without more words, +had a grace in it that Lord Chesterfield could not have taught +his son in a century.</p> +<p>Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and sucking his +walking-stick with sufficient unconcern, until the visit had +attained this stage. Seeing his sister ready to depart, he +got up, rather hurriedly, and put in a word.</p> +<p>‘Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should +like to speak to him a moment. Something comes into my +head. If you’ll step out on the stairs, Blackpool, +I’ll mention it. Never mind a light, +man!’ Tom was remarkably impatient of his moving +towards the cupboard, to get one. ‘It don’t +want a light.’</p> +<p>Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and +held the lock in his hand.</p> +<p>‘I say!’ he whispered. ‘I think I can +do you a good turn. Don’t ask me what it is, because +it may not come to anything. But there’s no harm in +my trying.’</p> +<p>His breath fell like a flame of fire on Stephen’s ear, +it was so hot.</p> +<p>‘That was our light porter at the Bank,’ said Tom, +‘who brought you the message to-night. I call him our +light porter, because I belong to the Bank too.’</p> +<p>Stephen thought, ‘What a hurry he is in!’ He +spoke so confusedly.</p> +<p>‘Well!’ said Tom. ‘Now look +here! When are you off?’</p> +<p>‘T’ day’s Monday,’ replied Stephen, +considering. ‘Why, sir, Friday or Saturday, nigh +’bout.’</p> +<p>‘Friday or Saturday,’ said Tom. ‘Now +look here! I am not sure that I can do you the good turn I +want to do you—that’s my sister, you know, in your +room—but I may be able to, and if I should not be able to, +there’s no harm done. So I tell you what. +You’ll know our light porter again?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sure,’ said Stephen.</p> +<p>‘Very well,’ returned Tom. ‘When you +leave work of a night, between this and your going away, just +hang about the Bank an hour or so, will you? Don’t +take on, as if you meant anything, if he should see you hanging +about there; because I shan’t put him up to speak to you, +unless I find I can do you the service I want to do you. In +that case he’ll have a note or a message for you, but not +else. Now look here! You are sure you +understand.’</p> +<p>He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a button-hole +of Stephen’s coat, and was screwing that corner of the +garment tight up round and round, in an extraordinary manner.</p> +<p>‘I understand, sir,’ said Stephen.</p> +<p>‘Now look here!’ repeated Tom. ‘Be +sure you don’t make any mistake then, and don’t +forget. I shall tell my sister as we go home, what I have +in view, and she’ll approve, I know. Now look +here! You’re all right, are you? You understand +all about it? Very well then. Come along, +Loo!’</p> +<p>He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did not +return into the room, or wait to be lighted down the narrow +stairs. He was at the bottom when she began to descend, and +was in the street before she could take his arm.</p> +<p>Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother and +sister were gone, and until Stephen came back with the candle in +his hand. She was in a state of inexpressible admiration of +Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an unaccountable old woman, wept, +‘because she was such a pretty dear.’ Yet Mrs. +Pegler was so flurried lest the object of her admiration should +return by chance, or anybody else should come, that her +cheerfulness was ended for that night. It was late too, to +people who rose early and worked hard; therefore the party broke +up; and Stephen and Rachael escorted their mysterious +acquaintance to the door of the Travellers’ Coffee House, +where they parted from her.</p> +<p>They walked back together to the corner of the street where +Rachael lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer to it, silence +crept upon them. When they came to the dark corner where +their unfrequent meetings always ended, they stopped, still +silent, as if both were afraid to speak.</p> +<p>‘I shall strive t’ see thee agen, Rachael, afore I +go, but if not—’</p> +<p>‘Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. ’Tis better +that we make up our minds to be open wi’ one +another.’</p> +<p>‘Thou’rt awlus right. ’Tis bolder and +better. I ha been thinkin then, Rachael, that as ’tis +but a day or two that remains, ’twere better for thee, my +dear, not t’ be seen wi’ me. ’T might +bring thee into trouble, fur no good.’</p> +<p>‘’Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. +But thou know’st our old agreement. ’Tis for +that.’</p> +<p>‘Well, well,’ said he. ‘’Tis +better, onnyways.’</p> +<p>‘Thou’lt write to me, and tell me all that +happens, Stephen?’</p> +<p>‘Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi’ +thee, Heaven bless thee, Heaven thank thee and reward +thee!’</p> +<p>‘May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wanderings, +and send thee peace and rest at last!’</p> +<p>‘I towd thee, my dear,’ said Stephen +Blackpool—‘that night—that I would never see or +think o’ onnything that angered me, but thou, so much +better than me, should’st be beside it. Thou’rt +beside it now. Thou mak’st me see it wi’ a +better eye. Bless thee. Good night. +Good-bye!’</p> +<p>It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet it was a +sacred remembrance to these two common people. Utilitarian +economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, +genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little +dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will have always with +you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost +graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so +much in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when +romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare +existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, +and make an end of you.</p> +<p>Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered by a word +from any one, and shunned in all his comings and goings as +before. At the end of the second day, he saw land; at the +end of the third, his loom stood empty.</p> +<p>He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the Bank, on +each of the two first evenings; and nothing had happened there, +good or bad. That he might not be remiss in his part of the +engagement, he resolved to wait full two hours, on this third and +last night.</p> +<p>There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Bounderby’s +house, sitting at the first-floor window as he had seen her +before; and there was the light porter, sometimes talking with +her there, and sometimes looking over the blind below which had +<span class="smcap">Bank</span> upon it, and sometimes coming to +the door and standing on the steps for a breath of air. +When he first came out, Stephen thought he might be looking for +him, and passed near; but the light porter only cast his winking +eyes upon him slightly, and said nothing.</p> +<p>Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after a long +day’s labour. Stephen sat upon the step of a door, +leaned against a wall under an archway, strolled up and down, +listened for the church clock, stopped and watched children +playing in the street. Some purpose or other is so natural +to every one, that a mere loiterer always looks and feels +remarkable. When the first hour was out, Stephen even began +to have an uncomfortable sensation upon him of being for the time +a disreputable character.</p> +<p>Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines of light +all down the long perspective of the street, until they were +blended and lost in the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed the +first-floor window, drew down the blind, and went +up-stairs. Presently, a light went up-stairs after her, +passing first the fanlight of the door, and afterwards the two +staircase windows, on its way up. By and by, one corner of +the second-floor blind was disturbed, as if Mrs. Sparsit’s +eye were there; also the other corner, as if the light +porter’s eye were on that side. Still, no +communication was made to Stephen. Much relieved when the +two hours were at last accomplished, he went away at a quick +pace, as a recompense for so much loitering.</p> +<p>He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie down on his +temporary bed upon the floor; for his bundle was made up for +to-morrow, and all was arranged for his departure. He meant +to be clear of the town very early; before the Hands were in the +streets.</p> +<p>It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look round his +room, mournfully wondering whether he should ever see it again, +he went out. The town was as entirely deserted as if the +inhabitants had abandoned it, rather than hold communication with +him. Everything looked wan at that hour. Even the +coming sun made but a pale waste in the sky, like a sad sea.</p> +<p>By the place where Rachael lived, though it was not in his +way; by the red brick streets; by the great silent factories, not +trembling yet; by the railway, where the danger-lights were +waning in the strengthening day; by the railway’s crazy +neighbourhood, half pulled down and half built up; by scattered +red brick villas, where the besmoked evergreens were sprinkled +with a dirty powder, like untidy snuff-takers; by coal-dust paths +and many varieties of ugliness; Stephen got to the top of the +hill, and looked back.</p> +<p>Day was shining radiantly upon the town then, and the bells +were going for the morning work. Domestic fires were not +yet lighted, and the high chimneys had the sky to +themselves. Puffing out their poisonous volumes, they would +not be long in hiding it; but, for half an hour, some of the many +windows were golden, which showed the Coketown people a sun +eternally in eclipse, through a medium of smoked glass.</p> +<p>So strange to turn from the chimneys to the birds. So +strange, <a id="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>to have the road-dust on his feet instead of the +coal-grit. So strange to have lived to his time of life, +and yet to be beginning like a boy this summer morning! +With these musings in his mind, and his bundle under his arm, +Stephen took his attentive face along the high road. And +the trees arched over him, whispering that he left a true and +loving heart behind.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">GUNPOWDER</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. James Harthouse</span>, ‘going +in’ for his adopted party, soon began to score. With +the aid of a little more coaching for the political sages, a +little more genteel listlessness for the general society, and a +tolerable management of the assumed honesty in dishonesty, most +effective and most patronized of the polite deadly sins, he +speedily came to be considered of much promise. The not +being troubled with earnestness was a grand point in his favour, +enabling him to take to the hard Fact fellows with as good a +grace as if he had been born one of the tribe, and to throw all +other tribes overboard, as conscious hypocrites.</p> +<p>‘Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. Bounderby, and +who do not believe themselves. The only difference between +us and the professors of virtue or benevolence, or +philanthropy—never mind the name—is, that we know it +is all meaningless, and say so; while they know it equally and +will never say so.’</p> +<p>Why should she be shocked or warned by this reiteration? +It was not so unlike her father’s principles, and her early +training, that it need startle her. Where was the great +difference between the two schools, when each chained her down to +material realities, and inspired her with no faith in anything +else? What was there in her soul for James Harthouse to +destroy, which Thomas Gradgrind had nurtured there in its state +of innocence!</p> +<p>It was even the worse for her at this pass, that in her +mind—implanted there before her eminently practical father +began to form it—a struggling disposition to believe in a +wider and nobler humanity than she had ever heard of, constantly +strove with doubts and resentments. With doubts, because +the aspiration had been so laid waste in her youth. With +resentments, because of the wrong that had been done her, if it +were indeed a whisper of the truth. Upon a nature long +accustomed to self-suppression, thus torn and divided, the +Harthouse philosophy came as a relief and justification. +Everything being hollow and worthless, she had missed nothing and +sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had said to her +father, when he proposed her husband. What did it matter, +she said still. With a scornful self-reliance, she asked +herself, What did anything matter—and went on.</p> +<p>Towards what? Step by step, onward and downward, towards +some end, yet so gradually, that she believed herself to remain +motionless. As to Mr. Harthouse, whither <i>he</i> tended, +he neither considered nor cared. He had no particular +design or plan before him: no energetic wickedness ruffled his +lassitude. He was as much amused and interested, at +present, as it became so fine a gentleman to be; perhaps even +more than it would have been consistent with his reputation to +confess. Soon after his arrival he languidly wrote to his +brother, the honourable and jocular member, that the Bounderbys +were ‘great fun;’ and further, that the female +Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he had expected, was +young, and remarkably pretty. After that, he wrote no more +about them, and devoted his leisure chiefly to their house. +He was very often in their house, in his flittings and visitings +about the Coketown district; and was much encouraged by Mr. +Bounderby. It was quite in Mr. Bounderby’s gusty way +to boast to all his world that <i>he</i> didn’t care about +your highly connected people, but that if his wife Tom +Gradgrind’s daughter did, she was welcome to their +company.</p> +<p>Mr. James Harthouse began to think it would be a new +sensation, if the face which changed so beautifully for the +whelp, would change for him.</p> +<p>He was quick enough to observe; he had a good memory, and did +not forget a word of the brother’s revelations. He +interwove them with everything he saw of the sister, and he began +to understand her. To be sure, the better and profounder +part of her character was not within his scope of perception; for +in natures, as in seas, depth answers unto depth; but he soon +began to read the rest with a student’s eye.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a house and grounds, +about fifteen miles from the town, and accessible within a mile +or two, by a railway striding on many arches over a wild country, +undermined by deserted coal-shafts, and spotted at night by fires +and black shapes of stationary engines at pits’ +mouths. This country, gradually softening towards the +neighbourhood of Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, there mellowed +into a rustic landscape, golden with heath, and snowy with +hawthorn in the spring of the year, and tremulous with leaves and +their shadows all the summer time. The bank had foreclosed +a mortgage effected on the property thus pleasantly situated, by +one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his determination to make a +shorter cut than usual to an enormous fortune, overspeculated +himself by about two hundred thousand pounds. These +accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated families of +Coketown, but the bankrupts had no connexion whatever with the +improvident classes.</p> +<p>It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satisfaction to instal +himself in this snug little estate, and with demonstrative +humility to grow cabbages in the flower-garden. He +delighted to live, barrack-fashion, among the elegant furniture, +and he bullied the very pictures with his origin. +‘Why, sir,’ he would say to a visitor, ‘I am +told that Nickits,’ the late owner, ‘gave seven +hundred pound for that Seabeach. Now, to be plain with you, +if I ever, in the whole course of my life, take seven looks at +it, at a hundred pound a look, it will be as much as I shall +do. No, by George! I don’t forget that I am +Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. For years upon years, the +only pictures in my possession, or that I could have got into my +possession, by any means, unless I stole ’em, were the +engravings of a man shaving himself in a boot, on the blacking +bottles that I was overjoyed to use in cleaning boots with, and +that I sold when they were empty for a farthing a-piece, and glad +to get it!’</p> +<p>Then he would address Mr. Harthouse in the same style.</p> +<p>‘Harthouse, you have a couple of horses down here. +Bring half a dozen more if you like, and we’ll find room +for ’em. There’s stabling in this place for a +dozen horses; and unless Nickits is belied, he kept the full +number. A round dozen of ’em, sir. When that +man was a boy, he went to Westminster School. Went to +Westminster School as a King’s Scholar, when I was +principally living on garbage, and sleeping in market +baskets. Why, if I wanted to keep a dozen +horses—which I don’t, for one’s enough for +me—I couldn’t bear to see ’em in their stalls +here, and think what my own lodging used to be. I +couldn’t look at ’em, sir, and not order ’em +out. Yet so things come round. You see this place; +you know what sort of a place it is; you are aware that +there’s not a completer place of its size in this kingdom +or elsewhere—I don’t care where—and here, got +into the middle of it, like a maggot into a nut, is Josiah +Bounderby. While Nickits (as a man came into my office, and +told me yesterday), Nickits, who used to act in Latin, in the +Westminster School plays, with the chief-justices and nobility of +this country applauding him till they were black in the face, is +drivelling at this minute—drivelling, sir!—in a fifth +floor, up a narrow dark back street in Antwerp.’</p> +<p>It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in the long +sultry summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began to prove the face +which had set him wondering when he first saw it, and to try if +it would change for him.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate accident +that I find you alone here. I have for some time had a +particular wish to speak to you.’</p> +<p>It was not by any wonderful accident that he found her, the +time of day being that at which she was always alone, and the +place being her favourite resort. It was an opening in a +dark wood, where some felled trees lay, and where she would sit +watching the fallen leaves of last year, as she had watched the +falling ashes at home.</p> +<p>He sat down beside her, with a glance at her face.</p> +<p>‘Your brother. My young friend +Tom—’</p> +<p>Her colour brightened, and she turned to him with a look of +interest. ‘I never in my life,’ he thought, +‘saw anything so remarkable and so captivating as the +lighting of those features!’ His face betrayed his +thoughts—perhaps without betraying him, for it might have +been according to its instructions so to do.</p> +<p>‘Pardon me. The expression of your sisterly +interest is so beautiful—Tom should be so proud of +it—I know this is inexcusable, but I am so compelled to +admire.’</p> +<p>‘Being so impulsive,’ she said composedly.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby, no: you know I make no pretence with +you. You know I am a sordid piece of human nature, ready to +sell myself at any time for any reasonable sum, and altogether +incapable of any Arcadian proceeding whatever.’</p> +<p>‘I am waiting,’ she returned, ‘for your +further reference to my brother.’</p> +<p>‘You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. I am as +worthless a dog as you will find, except that I am not +false—not false. But you surprised and started me +from my subject, which was your brother. I have an interest +in him.’</p> +<p>‘Have you an interest in anything, Mr. Harthouse?’ +she asked, half incredulously and half gratefully.</p> +<p>‘If you had asked me when I first came here, I should +have said no. I must say now—even at the hazard of +appearing to make a pretence, and of justly awakening your +incredulity—yes.’</p> +<p>She made a slight movement, as if she were trying to speak, +but could not find voice; at length she said, ‘Mr. +Harthouse, I give you credit for being interested in my +brother.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You know +how little I do claim, but I will go that length. You have +done so much for him, you are so fond of him; your whole life, +Mrs. Bounderby, expresses such charming self-forgetfulness on his +account—pardon me again—I am running wide of the +subject. I am interested in him for his own +sake.’</p> +<p>She had made the slightest action possible, as if she would +have risen in a hurry and gone away. He had turned the +course of what he said at that instant, and she remained.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he resumed, in a lighter manner, +and yet with a show of effort in assuming it, which was even more +expressive than the manner he dismissed; ‘it is no +irrevocable offence in a young fellow of your brother’s +years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate, and expensive—a +little dissipated, in the common phrase. Is he?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Allow me to be frank. Do you think he games at +all?’</p> +<p>‘I think he makes bets.’ Mr. Harthouse +waiting, as if that were not her whole answer, she added, +‘I know he does.’</p> +<p>‘Of course he loses?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Everybody does lose who bets. May I hint at the +probability of your sometimes supplying him with money for these +purposes?’</p> +<p>She sat, looking down; but, at this question, raised her eyes +searchingly and a little resentfully.</p> +<p>‘Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my dear Mrs. +Bounderby. I think Tom may be gradually falling into +trouble, and I wish to stretch out a helping hand to him from the +depths of my wicked experience.—Shall I say again, for his +sake? Is that necessary?’</p> +<p>She seemed to try to answer, but nothing came of it.</p> +<p>‘Candidly to confess everything that has occurred to +me,’ said James Harthouse, again gliding with the same +appearance of effort into his more airy manner; ‘I will +confide to you my doubt whether he has had many advantages. +Whether—forgive my plainness—whether any great amount +of confidence is likely to have been established between himself +and his most worthy father.’</p> +<p>‘I do not,’ said Louisa, flushing with her own +great remembrance in that wise, ‘think it +likely.’</p> +<p>‘Or, between himself, and—I may trust to your +perfect understanding of my meaning, I am sure—and his +highly esteemed brother-in-law.’</p> +<p>She flushed deeper and deeper, and was burning red when she +replied in a fainter voice, ‘I do not think that likely, +either.’</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, after a short +silence, ‘may there be a better confidence between yourself +and me? Tom has borrowed a considerable sum of +you?’</p> +<p>‘You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,’ she +returned, after some indecision: she had been more or less +uncertain, and troubled throughout the conversation, and yet had +in the main preserved her self-contained manner; ‘you will +understand that if I tell you what you press to know, it is not +by way of complaint or regret. I would never complain of +anything, and what I have done I do not in the least +regret.’</p> +<p>‘So spirited, too!’ thought James Harthouse.</p> +<p>‘When I married, I found that my brother was even at +that time heavily in debt. Heavily for him, I mean. +Heavily enough to oblige me to sell some trinkets. They +were no sacrifice. I sold them very willingly. I +attached no value to them. They were quite worthless to +me.’</p> +<p>Either she saw in his face that he knew, or she only feared in +her conscience that he knew, that she spoke of some of her +husband’s gifts. She stopped, and reddened +again. If he had not known it before, he would have known +it then, though he had been a much duller man than he was.</p> +<p>‘Since then, I have given my brother, at various times, +what money I could spare: in short, what money I have had. +Confiding in you at all, on the faith of the interest you profess +for him, I will not do so by halves. Since you have been in +the habit of visiting here, he has wanted in one sum as much as a +hundred pounds. I have not been able to give it to +him. I have felt uneasy for the consequences of his being +so involved, but I have kept these secrets until now, when I +trust them to your honour. I have held no confidence with +any one, because—you anticipated my reason just +now.’ She abruptly broke off.</p> +<p>He was a ready man, and he saw, and seized, an opportunity +here of presenting her own image to her, slightly disguised as +her brother.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, of the world +worldly, I feel the utmost interest, I assure you, in what you +tell me. I cannot possibly be hard upon your brother. +I understand and share the wise consideration with which you +regard his errors. With all possible respect both for Mr. +Gradgrind and for Mr. Bounderby, I think I perceive that he has +not been fortunate in his training. Bred at a disadvantage +towards the society in which he has his part to play, he rushes +into these extremes for himself, from opposite extremes that have +long been forced—with the very best intentions we have no +doubt—upon him. Mr. Bounderby’s fine bluff +English independence, though a most charming characteristic, does +not—as we have agreed—invite confidence. If I +might venture to remark that it is the least in the world +deficient in that delicacy to which a youth mistaken, a character +misconceived, and abilities misdirected, would turn for relief +and guidance, I should express what it presents to my own +view.’</p> +<p>As she sat looking straight before her, across the changing +lights upon the grass into the darkness of the wood beyond, he +saw in her face her application of his very distinctly uttered +words.</p> +<p>‘All allowance,’ he continued, ‘must be +made. I have one great fault to find with Tom, however, +which I cannot forgive, and for which I take him heavily to +account.’</p> +<p>Louisa turned her eyes to his face, and asked him what fault +was that?</p> +<p>‘Perhaps,’ he returned, ‘I have said +enough. Perhaps it would have been better, on the whole, if +no allusion to it had escaped me.’</p> +<p>‘You alarm me, Mr. Harthouse. Pray let me know +it.’</p> +<p><a id="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>‘To relieve you from needless +apprehension—and as this confidence regarding your brother, +which I prize I am sure above all possible things, has been +established between us—I obey. I cannot forgive him +for not being more sensible in every word, look, and act of his +life, of the affection of his best friend; of the devotion of his +best friend; of her unselfishness; of her sacrifice. The +return he makes her, within my observation, is a very poor +one. What she has done for him demands his constant love +and gratitude, not his ill-humour and caprice. Careless +fellow as I am, I am not so indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as to be +regardless of this vice in your brother, or inclined to consider +it a venial offence.’</p> +<p>The wood floated before her, for her eyes were suffused with +tears. They rose from a deep well, long concealed, and her +heart was filled with acute pain that found no relief in +them.</p> +<p>‘In a word, it is to correct your brother in this, Mrs. +Bounderby, that I must aspire. My better knowledge of his +circumstances, and my direction and advice in extricating +them—rather valuable, I hope, as coming from a scapegrace +on a much larger scale—will give me some influence over +him, and all I gain I shall certainly use towards this end. +I have said enough, and more than enough. I seem to be +protesting that I am a sort of good fellow, when, upon my honour, +I have not the least intention to make any protestation to that +effect, and openly announce that I am nothing of the sort. +Yonder, among the trees,’ he added, having lifted up his +eyes and looked about; for he had watched her closely until now; +‘is your brother himself; no doubt, just come down. +As he seems to be loitering in this direction, it may be as well, +perhaps, to walk towards him, and throw ourselves in his +way. He has been very silent and doleful of late. +Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is touched—if there are +such things as consciences. Though, upon my honour, I hear +of them much too often to believe in them.’</p> +<p>He assisted her to rise, and she took his arm, and they +advanced to meet the whelp. He was idly beating the +branches as he lounged along: or he stooped viciously to rip the +moss from the trees with his stick. He was startled when +they came upon him while he was engaged in this latter pastime, +and his colour changed.</p> +<p>‘Halloa!’ he stammered; ‘I didn’t know +you were here.’</p> +<p>‘Whose name, Tom,’ said Mr. Harthouse, putting his +hand upon his shoulder and turning him, so that they all three +walked towards the house together, ‘have you been carving +on the trees?’</p> +<p>‘Whose name?’ returned Tom. ‘Oh! +You mean what girl’s name?’</p> +<p>‘You have a suspicious appearance of inscribing some +fair creature’s on the bark, Tom.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p132b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the garden" +title= +"Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the garden" +src="images/p132s.jpg"> +</a></p> +<p>‘Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless some fair +creature with a slashing fortune at her own disposal would take a +fancy to me. Or she might be as ugly as she was rich, +without any fear of losing me. I’d carve her name as +often as she liked.’</p> +<p>‘I am afraid you are mercenary, Tom.’</p> +<p>‘Mercenary,’ repeated Tom. ‘Who is not +mercenary? Ask my sister.’</p> +<p>‘Have you so proved it to be a failing of mine, +Tom?’ said Louisa, showing no other sense of his discontent +and ill-nature.</p> +<p>‘You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,’ returned +her brother sulkily. ‘If it does, you can wear +it.’</p> +<p>‘Tom is misanthropical to-day, as all bored people are +now and then,’ said Mr. Harthouse. ‘Don’t +believe him, Mrs. Bounderby. He knows much better. I +shall disclose some of his opinions of you, privately expressed +to me, unless he relents a little.’</p> +<p>‘At all events, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, +softening in his admiration of his patron, but shaking his head +sullenly too, ‘you can’t tell her that I ever praised +her for being mercenary. I may have praised her for being +the contrary, and I should do it again, if I had as good +reason. However, never mind this now; it’s not very +interesting to you, and I am sick of the subject.’</p> +<p>They walked on to the house, where Louisa quitted her +visitor’s arm and went in. He stood looking after +her, as she ascended the steps, and passed into the shadow of the +door; then put his hand upon her brother’s shoulder again, +and invited him with a confidential nod to a walk in the +garden.</p> +<p>‘Tom, my fine fellow, I want to have a word with +you.’</p> +<p>They had stopped among a disorder of roses—it was part +of Mr. Bounderby’s humility to keep Nickits’s roses +on a reduced scale—and Tom sat down on a terrace-parapet, +plucking buds and picking them to pieces; while his powerful +Familiar stood over him, with a foot upon the parapet, and his +figure easily resting on the arm supported by that knee. +They were just visible from her window. Perhaps she saw +them.</p> +<p>‘Tom, what’s the matter?’</p> +<p>‘Oh! Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom with a groan, +‘I am hard up, and bothered out of my life.’</p> +<p>‘My good fellow, so am I.’</p> +<p>‘You!’ returned Tom. ‘You are the +picture of independence. Mr. Harthouse, I am in a horrible +mess. You have no idea what a state I have got myself +into—what a state my sister might have got me out of, if +she would only have done it.’</p> +<p>He took to biting the rosebuds now, and tearing them away from +his teeth with a hand that trembled like an infirm old +man’s. After one exceedingly observant look at him, +his companion relapsed into his lightest air.</p> +<p>‘Tom, you are inconsiderate: you expect too much of your +sister. You have had money of her, you dog, you know you +have.’</p> +<p>‘Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else was +I to get it? Here’s old Bounderby always boasting +that at my age he lived upon twopence a month, or something of +that sort. Here’s my father drawing what he calls a +line, and tying me down to it from a baby, neck and heels. +Here’s my mother who never has anything of her own, except +her complaints. What <i>is</i> a fellow to do for money, +and where <i>am</i> I to look for it, if not to my +sister?’</p> +<p>He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by +dozens. Mr. Harthouse took him persuasively by the +coat.</p> +<p>‘But, my dear Tom, if your sister has not got +it—’</p> +<p>‘Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don’t say she +has got it. I may have wanted more than she was likely to +have got. But then she ought to get it. She could get +it. It’s of no use pretending to make a secret of +matters now, after what I have told you already; you know she +didn’t marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for his +sake, but for my sake. Then why doesn’t she get what +I want, out of him, for my sake? She is not obliged to say +what she is going to do with it; she is sharp enough; she could +manage to coax it out of him, if she chose. Then why +doesn’t she choose, when I tell her of what consequence it +is? But no. There she sits in his company like a +stone, instead of making herself agreeable and getting it +easily. I don’t know what you may call this, but I +call it unnatural conduct.’</p> +<p>There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the +parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a +very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind junior, as +the injured men of Coketown threatened to pitch their property +into the Atlantic. But he preserved his easy attitude; and +nothing more solid went over the stone balustrades than the +accumulated rosebuds now floating about, a little +surface-island.</p> +<p>‘My dear Tom,’ said Harthouse, ‘let me try +to be your banker.’</p> +<p>‘For God’s sake,’ replied Tom, suddenly, +‘don’t talk about bankers!’ And very +white he looked, in contrast with the roses. Very +white.</p> +<p>Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well-bred man, accustomed to +the best society, was not to be surprised—he could as soon +have been affected—but he raised his eyelids a little more, +as if they were lifted by a feeble touch of wonder. Albeit +it was as much against the precepts of his school to wonder, as +it was against the doctrines of the Gradgrind College.</p> +<p>‘What is the present need, Tom? Three +figures? Out with them. Say what they are.’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Harthouse,’ returned Tom, now actually +crying; and his tears were better than his injuries, however +pitiful a figure he made: ‘it’s too late; the money +is of no use to me at present. I should have had it before +to be of use to me. But I am very much obliged to you; +you’re a true friend.’</p> +<p>A true friend! ‘Whelp, whelp!’ thought Mr. +Harthouse, lazily; ‘what an Ass you are!’</p> +<p>‘And I take your offer as a great kindness,’ said +Tom, grasping his hand. ‘As a great kindness, Mr. +Harthouse.’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ returned the other, ‘it may be of +more use by and by. And, my good fellow, if you will open +your bedevilments to me when they come thick upon you, I may show +you better ways out of them than you can find for +yourself.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you,’ said Tom, shaking his head dismally, +and chewing rosebuds. ‘I wish I had known you sooner, +Mr. Harthouse.’</p> +<p>‘Now, you see, Tom,’ said Mr. Harthouse in +conclusion, himself tossing over a rose or two, as a contribution +to the island, which was always drifting to the wall as if it +wanted to become a part of the mainland: ‘every man is +selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly like the rest of +my fellow-creatures. I am desperately intent;’ the +languor of his desperation being quite tropical; ‘on your +softening towards your sister—which you ought to do; and on +your being a more loving and agreeable sort of +brother—which you ought to be.’</p> +<p>‘I will be, Mr. Harthouse.’</p> +<p>‘No time like the present, Tom. Begin at +once.’</p> +<p>‘Certainly I will. And my sister Loo shall say +so.’</p> +<p>‘Having made which bargain, Tom,’ said Harthouse, +clapping him on the shoulder again, with an air which left him at +liberty to infer—as he did, poor fool—that this +condition was imposed upon him in mere careless good nature to +lessen his sense of obligation, ‘we will tear ourselves +asunder until dinner-time.’</p> +<p>When Tom appeared before dinner, though his mind seemed heavy +enough, his body was on the alert; and he appeared before Mr. +Bounderby came in. ‘I didn’t mean to be cross, +Loo,’ he said, giving her his hand, and kissing her. +‘I know you are fond of me, and you know I am fond of +you.’</p> +<p>After this, there was a smile upon Louisa’s face that +day, for some one else. Alas, for some one else!</p> +<p>‘So much the less is the whelp the only creature that +she cares for,’ thought James Harthouse, reversing the +reflection of his first day’s knowledge of her pretty +face. ‘So much the less, so much the less.’</p> +<h3><a id="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>CHAPTER VIII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">EXPLOSION</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning was too bright a +morning for sleep, and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the +pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, smoking the rare +tobacco that had had so wholesome an influence on his young +friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his +eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke vanishing into the +air, so rich and soft with summer odours, he reckoned up his +advantages as an idle winner might count his gains. He was +not at all bored for the time, and could give his mind to it.</p> +<p>He had established a confidence with her, from which her +husband was excluded. He had established a confidence with +her, that absolutely turned upon her indifference towards her +husband, and the absence, now and at all times, of any +congeniality between them. He had artfully, but plainly, +assured her that he knew her heart in its last most delicate +recesses; he had come so near to her through its tenderest +sentiment; he had associated himself with that feeling; and the +barrier behind which she lived, had melted away. All very +odd, and very satisfactory!</p> +<p>And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of +purpose in him. Publicly and privately, it were much better +for the age in which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he +was one were designedly bad, than indifferent and +purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs setting with any +current anywhere, that wreck the ships.</p> +<p>When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about +in a shape by which few but savages and hunters are +attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and +varnished, according to the mode; when he is aweary of vice, and +aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to +bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or +to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil.</p> +<p>So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, +and reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he +happened to be travelling. The end to which it led was +before him, pretty plainly; but he troubled himself with no +calculations about it. What will be, will be.</p> +<p>As he had rather a long ride to take that day—for there +was a public occasion ‘to do’ at some distance, which +afforded a tolerable opportunity of going in for the Gradgrind +men—he dressed early and went down to breakfast. He +was anxious to see if she had relapsed since the previous +evening. No. He resumed where he had left off. +There was a look of interest for him again.</p> +<p>He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own +satisfaction, as was to be expected under the fatiguing +circumstances; and came riding back at six o’clock. +There was a sweep of some half-mile between the lodge and the +house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the smooth +gravel, once Nickits’s, when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the +shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy across the +road.</p> +<p>‘Harthouse!’ cried Mr. Bounderby. +‘Have you heard?’</p> +<p>‘Heard what?’ said Harthouse, soothing his horse, +and inwardly favouring Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes.</p> +<p>‘Then you <i>haven’t</i> heard!’</p> +<p>‘I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have +heard nothing else.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of +the path before the horse’s head, to explode his bombshell +with more effect.</p> +<p>‘The Bank’s robbed!’</p> +<p>‘You don’t mean it!’</p> +<p>‘Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an +extraordinary manner. Robbed with a false key.’</p> +<p>‘Of much?’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really +seemed mortified by being obliged to reply, ‘Why, no; not +of very much. But it might have been.’</p> +<p>‘Of how much?’</p> +<p>‘Oh! as a sum—if you stick to a sum—of not +more than a hundred and fifty pound,’ said Bounderby, with +impatience. ‘But it’s not the sum; it’s +the fact. It’s the fact of the Bank being robbed, +that’s the important circumstance. I am surprised you +don’t see it.’</p> +<p>‘My dear Bounderby,’ said James, dismounting, and +giving his bridle to his servant, ‘I <i>do</i> see it; and +am as overcome as you can possibly desire me to be, by the +spectacle afforded to my mental view. Nevertheless, I may +be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you—which I do with all +my soul, I assure you—on your not having sustained a +greater loss.’</p> +<p>‘Thank’ee,’ replied Bounderby, in a short, +ungracious manner. ‘But I tell you what. It +might have been twenty thousand pound.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose it might.’</p> +<p>‘Suppose it might! By the Lord, you <i>may</i> +suppose so. By George!’ said Mr. Bounderby, with +sundry menacing nods and shakes of his head. ‘It +might have been twice twenty. There’s no knowing what +it would have been, or wouldn’t have been, as it was, but +for the fellows’ being disturbed.’</p> +<p>Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer.</p> +<p>‘Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows +pretty well what it might have been, if you don’t,’ +blustered Bounderby. ‘Dropped, sir, as if she was +shot when I told her! Never knew her do such a thing +before. Does her credit, under the circumstances, in my +opinion!’</p> +<p>She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse begged +her to take his arm; and as they moved on very slowly, asked her +how the robbery had been committed.</p> +<p>‘Why, I am going to tell you,’ said Bounderby, +irritably giving his arm to Mrs. Sparsit. ‘If you +hadn’t been so mighty particular about the sum, I should +have begun to tell you before. You know this lady (for she +<i>is</i> a lady), Mrs. Sparsit?’</p> +<p>‘I have already had the honour—’</p> +<p>‘Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw +him too on the same occasion?’ Mr. Harthouse inclined +his head in assent, and Bitzer knuckled his forehead.</p> +<p>‘Very well. They live at the Bank. You know +they live at the Bank, perhaps? Very well. Yesterday +afternoon, at the close of business hours, everything was put +away as usual. In the iron room that this young fellow +sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. In the +little safe in young Tom’s closet, the safe used for petty +purposes, there was a hundred and fifty odd pound.’</p> +<p>‘A hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,’ said +Bitzer.</p> +<p>‘Come!’ retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel +round upon him, ‘let’s have none of <i>your</i> +interruptions. It’s enough to be robbed while +you’re snoring because you’re too comfortable, +without being put right with <i>your</i> four seven ones. I +didn’t snore, myself, when I was your age, let me tell +you. I hadn’t victuals enough to snore. And I +didn’t four seven one. Not if I knew it.’</p> +<p>Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and +seemed at once particularly impressed and depressed by the +instance last given of Mr. Bounderby’s moral +abstinence.</p> +<p>‘A hundred and fifty odd pound,’ resumed Mr. +Bounderby. ‘That sum of money, young Tom locked in +his safe, not a very strong safe, but that’s no matter +now. Everything was left, all right. Some time in the +night, while this young fellow snored—Mrs. Sparsit, +ma’am, you say you have heard him snore?’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I cannot say +that I have heard him precisely snore, and therefore must not +make that statement. But on winter evenings, when he has +fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what I should +prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard him on +such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar to what may be +sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict evidence, +‘that I would convey any imputation on his moral +character. Far from it. I have always considered +Bitzer a young man of the most upright principle; and to that I +beg to bear my testimony.’</p> +<p>‘Well!’ said the exasperated Bounderby, +‘while he was snoring, <i>or</i> choking, <i>or</i> +Dutch-clocking, <i>or</i> something <i>or</i> other—being +asleep—some fellows, somehow, whether previously concealed +in the house or not remains to be seen, got to young Tom’s +safe, forced it, and abstracted the contents. Being then +disturbed, they made off; letting themselves out at the main +door, and double-locking it again (it was double-locked, and the +key under Mrs. Sparsit’s pillow) with a false key, which +was picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve +o’clock to-day. No alarm takes place, till this chap, +Bitzer, turns out this morning, and begins to open and prepare +the offices for business. Then, looking at Tom’s +safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced, and the +money gone.’</p> +<p>‘Where is Tom, by the by?’ asked Harthouse, +glancing round.</p> +<p>‘He has been helping the police,’ said Bounderby, +‘and stays behind at the Bank. I wish these fellows +had tried to rob me when I was at his time of life. They +would have been out of pocket if they had invested eighteenpence +in the job; I can tell ’em that.’</p> +<p>‘Is anybody suspected?’</p> +<p>‘Suspected? I should think there was somebody +suspected. Egod!’ said Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs. +Sparsit’s arm to wipe his heated head. ‘Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown is not to be plundered and nobody +suspected. No, thank you!’</p> +<p>Might Mr. Harthouse inquire Who was suspected?</p> +<p>‘Well,’ said Bounderby, stopping and facing about +to confront them all, ‘I’ll tell you. +It’s not to be mentioned everywhere; it’s not to be +mentioned anywhere: in order that the scoundrels concerned +(there’s a gang of ’em) may be thrown off their +guard. So take this in confidence. Now wait a +bit.’ Mr. Bounderby wiped his head again. +‘What should you say to;’ here he violently exploded: +‘to a Hand being in it?’</p> +<p>‘I hope,’ said Harthouse, lazily, ‘not our +friend Blackpot?’</p> +<p>‘Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,’ returned +Bounderby, ‘and that’s the man.’</p> +<p>Louisa faintly uttered some word of incredulity and +surprise.</p> +<p>‘O yes! I know!’ said Bounderby, immediately +catching at the sound. ‘I know! I am used to +that. I know all about it. They are the finest people +in the world, these fellows are. They have got the gift of +the gab, they have. They only want to have their rights +explained to them, they do. But I tell you what. Show +me a dissatisfied Hand, and I’ll show you a man +that’s fit for anything bad, I don’t care what it +is.’</p> +<p>Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which some pains +had been taken to disseminate—and which some people really +believed.</p> +<p>‘But I am acquainted with these chaps,’ said +Bounderby. ‘I can read ’em off, like +books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I appeal to you. +What warning did I give that fellow, the first time he set foot +in the house, when the express object of his visit was to know +how he could knock Religion over, and floor the Established +Church? Mrs. Sparsit, in point of high connexions, you are +on a level with the aristocracy,—did I say, or did I not +say, to that fellow, “you can’t hide the truth from +me: you are not the kind of fellow I like; you’ll come to +no good”?’</p> +<p>‘Assuredly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, +‘you did, in a highly impressive manner, give him such an +admonition.’</p> +<p>‘When he shocked you, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby; ‘when he shocked your feelings?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek +shake of her head, ‘he certainly did so. Though I do +not mean to say but that my feelings may be weaker on such +points—more foolish if the term is preferred—than +they might have been, if I had always occupied my present +position.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. Harthouse, +as much as to say, ‘I am the proprietor of this female, and +she’s worth your attention, I think.’ Then, +resumed his discourse.</p> +<p>‘You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said to +him when you saw him. I didn’t mince the matter with +him. I am never mealy with ’em. I <span +class="GutSmall">KNOW</span> ’em. Very well, +sir. Three days after that, he bolted. Went off, +nobody knows where: as my mother did in my infancy—only +with this difference, that he is a worse subject than my mother, +if possible. What did he do before he went? What do +you say;’ Mr. Bounderby, with his hat in his hand, gave a +beat upon the crown at every little division of his sentences, as +if it were a tambourine; ‘to his being seen—night +after night—watching the Bank?—to his lurking about +there—after dark?—To its striking Mrs. +Sparsit—that he could be lurking for no good—To her +calling Bitzer’s attention to him, and their both taking +notice of him—And to its appearing on inquiry +to-day—that he was also noticed by the +neighbours?’ Having come to the climax, Mr. +Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put his tambourine on his +head.</p> +<p>‘Suspicious,’ said James Harthouse, +‘certainly.’</p> +<p>‘I think so, sir,’ said Bounderby, with a defiant +nod. ‘I think so. But there are more of +’em in it. There’s an old woman. One +never hears of these things till the mischief’s done; all +sorts of defects are found out in the stable door after the horse +is stolen; there’s an old woman turns up now. An old +woman who seems to have been flying into town on a broomstick, +every now and then. <i>She</i> watches the place a whole +day before this fellow begins, and on the night when you saw him, +she steals away with him and holds a council with him—I +suppose, to make her report on going off duty, and be damned to +her.’</p> +<p>There was such a person in the room that night, and she shrunk +from observation, thought Louisa.</p> +<p>‘This is not all of ’em, even as we already know +’em,’ said Bounderby, with many nods of hidden +meaning. ‘But I have said enough for the +present. You’ll have the goodness to keep it quiet, +and mention it to no one. It may take time, but we shall +have ’em. It’s policy to give ’em line +enough, and there’s no objection to that.’</p> +<p>‘Of course, they will be punished with the utmost rigour +of the law, as notice-boards observe,’ replied James +Harthouse, ‘and serve them right. Fellows who go in +for Banks must take the consequences. If there were no +consequences, we should all go in for Banks.’ He had +gently taken Louisa’s parasol from her hand, and had put it +up for her; and she walked under its shade, though the sun did +not shine there.</p> +<p>‘For the present, Loo Bounderby,’ said her +husband, ‘here’s Mrs. Sparsit to look after. +Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves have been acted upon by this +business, and she’ll stay here a day or two. So make +her comfortable.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you very much, sir,’ that discreet lady +observed, ‘but pray do not let My comfort be a +consideration. Anything will do for Me.’</p> +<p>It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in her +association with that domestic establishment, it was that she was +so excessively regardless of herself and regardful of others, as +to be a nuisance. On being shown her chamber, she was so +dreadfully sensible of its comforts as to suggest the inference +that she would have preferred to pass the night on the mangle in +the laundry. True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses were +accustomed to splendour, ‘but it is my duty to +remember,’ Mrs. Sparsit was fond of observing with a lofty +grace: particularly when any of the domestics were present, +‘that what I was, I am no longer. Indeed,’ said +she, ‘if I could altogether cancel the remembrance that Mr. +Sparsit was a Powler, or that I myself am related to the Scadgers +family; or if I could even revoke the fact, and make myself a +person of common descent and ordinary connexions; I would gladly +do so. I should think it, under existing circumstances, +right to do so.’ The same Hermitical state of mind +led to her renunciation of made dishes and wines at dinner, until +fairly commanded by Mr. Bounderby to take them; when she said, +‘Indeed you are very good, sir;’ and departed from a +resolution of which she had made rather formal and public +announcement, to ‘wait for the simple mutton.’ +She was likewise deeply apologetic for wanting the salt; and, +feeling amiably bound to bear out Mr. Bounderby to the fullest +extent in the testimony he had borne to her nerves, occasionally +sat back in her chair and silently wept; at which periods a tear +of large dimensions, like a crystal ear-ring, might be observed +(or rather, must be, for it insisted on public notice) sliding +down her Roman nose.</p> +<p>But Mrs. Sparsit’s greatest point, first and last, was +her determination to pity Mr. Bounderby. There were +occasions when in looking at him she was involuntarily moved to +shake her head, as who would say, ‘Alas, poor +Yorick!’ After allowing herself to be betrayed into +these evidences of emotion, she would force a lambent brightness, +and would be fitfully cheerful, and would say, ‘You have +still good spirits, sir, I am thankful to find;’ and would +appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that Mr. Bounderby +bore up as he did. One idiosyncrasy for which she often +apologized, she found it excessively difficult to conquer. +She had a curious propensity to call Mrs. Bounderby ‘Miss +Gradgrind,’ and yielded to it some three or four score +times in the course of the evening. Her repetition of this +mistake covered Mrs. Sparsit with modest confusion; but indeed, +she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss Gradgrind: whereas, to +persuade herself that the young lady whom she had had the +happiness of knowing from a child could be really and truly Mrs. +Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a further +singularity of this remarkable case, that the more she thought +about it, the more impossible it appeared; ‘the +differences,’ she observed, ‘being such.’</p> +<p>In the drawing-room after dinner, Mr. Bounderby tried the case +of the robbery, examined the witnesses, made notes of the +evidence, found the suspected persons guilty, and sentenced them +to the extreme punishment of the law. That done, Bitzer was +dismissed to town with instructions to recommend Tom to come home +by the mail-train.</p> +<p>When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit murmured, +‘Don’t be low, sir. Pray let me see you +cheerful, sir, as I used to do.’ Mr. Bounderby, upon +whom these consolations had begun to produce the effect of making +him, in a bull-headed blundering way, sentimental, sighed like +some large sea-animal. ‘I cannot bear to see you so, +sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Try a hand at +backgammon, sir, as you used to do when I had the honour of +living under your roof.’ ‘I haven’t +played backgammon, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘since that time.’ ‘No, sir,’ said +Mrs. Sparsit, soothingly, ‘I am aware that you have +not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind takes no interest in +the game. But I shall be happy, sir, if you will +condescend.’</p> +<p>They played near a window, opening on the garden. It was +a fine night: not moonlight, but sultry and fragrant. +Louisa and Mr. Harthouse strolled out into the garden, where +their voices could be heard in the stillness, though not what +they said. Mrs. Sparsit, from her place at the backgammon +board, was constantly straining her eyes to pierce the shadows +without. ‘What’s the matter, +ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby; ‘you don’t +see a Fire, do you?’ ‘Oh dear no, sir,’ +returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I was thinking of the +dew.’ ‘What have you got to do with the dew, +ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘It’s +not myself, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I am +fearful of Miss Gradgrind’s taking cold.’ +‘She never takes cold,’ said Mr. Bounderby. +‘Really, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. And was +affected with a cough in her throat.</p> +<p>When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby took a +glass of water. ‘Oh, sir?’ said Mrs. +Sparsit. ‘Not your sherry warm, with lemon-peel and +nutmeg?’ ‘Why, I have got out of the habit of +taking it now, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby. +‘The more’s the pity, sir,’ returned Mrs. +Sparsit; ‘you are losing all your good old habits. +Cheer up, sir! If Miss Gradgrind will permit me, I will +offer to make it for you, as I have often done.’</p> +<p>Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do anything +she pleased, that considerate lady made the beverage, and handed +it to Mr. Bounderby. ‘It will do you good, sir. +It will warm your heart. It is the sort of thing you want, +and ought to take, sir.’ And when Mr. Bounderby said, +‘Your health, ma’am!’ she answered with great +feeling, ‘Thank you, sir. The same to you, and +happiness also.’ Finally, she wished him good night, +with great pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, with a maudlin +persuasion that he had been crossed in something tender, though +he could not, for his life, have mentioned what it was.</p> +<p>Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she watched and +waited for her brother’s coming home. That could +hardly be, she knew, until an hour past midnight; but in the +country silence, which did anything but calm the trouble of her +thoughts, time lagged wearily. At last, when the darkness +and stillness had seemed for hours to thicken one another, she +heard the bell at the gate. She felt as though she would +have been glad that it rang on until daylight; but it ceased, and +the circles of its last sound spread out fainter and wider in the +air, and all was dead again.</p> +<p>She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. +Then she arose, put on a loose robe, and went out of her room in +the dark, and up the staircase to her brother’s room. +His door being shut, she softly opened it and spoke to him, +approaching his bed with a noiseless step.</p> +<p>She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his neck, and +drew his face to hers. She knew that he only feigned to be +asleep, but she said nothing to him.</p> +<p>He started by and by as if he were just then awakened, and +asked who that was, and what was the matter?</p> +<p>‘Tom, have you anything to tell me? If ever you +loved me in your life, and have anything concealed from every one +besides, tell it to me.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t know what you mean, Loo. You have +been dreaming.’</p> +<p>‘My dear brother:’ she laid her head down on his +pillow, and her hair flowed over him as if she would hide him +from every one but herself: ‘is there nothing that you have +to tell me? Is there nothing you can tell me if you +will? You can tell me nothing that will change me. O +Tom, tell me the truth!’</p> +<p>‘I don’t know what you mean, Loo!’</p> +<p>‘As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy +night, so you must lie somewhere one night, when even I, if I am +living then, shall have left you. As I am here beside you, +barefoot, unclothed, undistinguishable in darkness, so must I lie +through all the night of my decay, until I am dust. In the +name of that time, Tom, tell me the truth now!’</p> +<p>‘What is it you want to know?’</p> +<p>‘You may be certain;’ in the energy of her love +she took him to her bosom as if he were a child; ‘that I +will not reproach you. You may be certain that I will be +compassionate and true to you. You may be certain that I +will save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have you nothing to +tell me? Whisper very softly. Say only +“yes,” and I shall understand you!’</p> +<p>She turned her ear to his lips, but he remained doggedly +silent.</p> +<p>‘Not a word, Tom?’</p> +<p>‘How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when I +don’t know what you mean? Loo, you are a brave, kind +girl, worthy I begin to think of a better brother than I +am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to bed, go to +bed.’</p> +<p>‘You are tired,’ she whispered presently, more in +her usual way.</p> +<p>‘Yes, I am quite tired out.’</p> +<p>‘You have been so hurried and disturbed to-day. +Have any fresh discoveries been made?’</p> +<p>‘Only those you have heard of, +from—him.’</p> +<p>‘Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit to +those people, and that we saw those three together?’</p> +<p>‘No. Didn’t you yourself particularly ask me +to keep it quiet when you asked me to go there with +you?’</p> +<p>‘Yes. But I did not know then what was going to +happen.’</p> +<p>‘Nor I neither. How could I?’</p> +<p>He was very quick upon her with this retort.</p> +<p>‘Ought I to say, after what has happened,’ said +his sister, standing by the bed—she had gradually withdrawn +herself and risen, ‘that I made that visit? Should I +say so? Must I say so?’</p> +<p>‘Good Heavens, Loo,’ returned her brother, +‘you are not in the habit of asking my advice. Say +what you like. If you keep it to yourself, I shall keep it +to <i>my</i>self. If you disclose it, there’s an end +of it.’</p> +<p>It was too dark for either to see the other’s face; but +each seemed very attentive, and to consider before speaking.</p> +<p>‘Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is +really implicated in this crime?’</p> +<p>‘I don’t know. I don’t see why he +shouldn’t be.’</p> +<p>‘He seemed to me an honest man.’</p> +<p>‘Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet not +be so.’ There was a pause, for he had hesitated and +stopped.</p> +<p>‘In short,’ resumed Tom, as if he had made up his +mind, ‘if you come to that, perhaps I was so far from being +altogether in his favour, that I took him outside the door to +tell him quietly, that I thought he might consider himself very +well off to get such a windfall as he had got from my sister, and +that I hoped he would make good use of it. You remember +whether I took him out or not. I say nothing against the +man; he may be a very good fellow, for anything I know; I hope he +is.’</p> +<p>‘Was he offended by what you said?’</p> +<p>‘No, he took it pretty well; he was civil enough. +Where are you, Loo?’ He sat up in bed and kissed +her. ‘Good night, my dear, good night.’</p> +<p>‘You have nothing more to tell me?’</p> +<p>‘No. What should I have? You wouldn’t +have me tell you a lie!’</p> +<p>‘I wouldn’t have you do that to-night, Tom, of all +the nights in your life; many and much happier as I hope they +will be.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am +sure I wonder I don’t say anything to get to sleep. +Go to bed, go to bed.’</p> +<p>Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet over his +head, and lay as still as if that time had come by which she had +adjured him. She stood for some time at the bedside before +she slowly moved away. She stopped at the door, looked back +when she had opened it, and asked him if he had called her? +But he lay still, and she softly closed the door and returned to +her room.</p> +<p>Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone, +crept out of bed, fastened his door, and threw himself upon his +pillow again: tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly +loving her, hatefully but impenitently spurning himself, and no +less hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the good in the +world.</p> +<h3><a id="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>CHAPTER IX<br> +<span class="GutSmall">HEARING THE LAST OF IT</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Sparsit</span>, lying by to recover +the tone of her nerves in Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, kept +such a sharp look-out, night and day, under her Coriolanian +eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an +iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent mariners from +that bold rock her Roman nose and the dark and craggy region in +its neighbourhood, but for the placidity of her manner. +Although it was hard to believe that her retiring for the night +could be anything but a form, so severely wide awake were those +classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did it seem that her +rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her manner +of sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty +mittens (they were constructed of a cool fabric like a +meat-safe), or of ambling to unknown places of destination with +her foot in her cotton stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that +most observers would have been constrained to suppose her a dove, +embodied by some freak of nature, in the earthly tabernacle of a +bird of the hook-beaked order.</p> +<p>She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the +house. How she got from story to story was a mystery beyond +solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly +connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters +or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of +locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable +circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never +hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the +roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath +and dignity on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was +she ever seen by human vision to go at a great pace.</p> +<p>She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant +conversation with him soon after her arrival. She made him +her stately curtsey in the garden, one morning before +breakfast.</p> +<p>‘It appears but yesterday, sir,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, ‘that I had the honour of receiving you at the +Bank, when you were so good as to wish to be made acquainted with +Mr. Bounderby’s address.’</p> +<p>‘An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself +in the course of Ages,’ said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his +head to Mrs. Sparsit with the most indolent of all possible +airs.</p> +<p>‘We live in a singular world, sir,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am +proud, to have made a remark, similar in effect, though not so +epigrammatically expressed.’</p> +<p>‘A singular world, I would say, sir,’ pursued Mrs. +Sparsit; after acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of +her dark eyebrows, not altogether so mild in its expression as +her voice was in its dulcet tones; ‘as regards the +intimacies we form at one time, with individuals we were quite +ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, that on that +occasion you went so far as to say you were actually apprehensive +of Miss Gradgrind.’</p> +<p>‘Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance +deserves. I availed myself of your obliging hints to +correct my timidity, and it is unnecessary to add that they were +perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit’s talent +for—in fact for anything requiring accuracy—with a +combination of strength of mind—and Family—is too +habitually developed to admit of any question.’ He +was almost falling asleep over this compliment; it took him so +long to get through, and his mind wandered so much in the course +of its execution.</p> +<p>‘You found Miss Gradgrind—I really cannot call her +Mrs. Bounderby; it’s very absurd of me—as youthful as +I described her?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly.</p> +<p>‘You drew her portrait perfectly,’ said Mr. +Harthouse. ‘Presented her dead image.’</p> +<p>‘Very engaging, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, causing +her mittens slowly to revolve over one another.</p> +<p>‘Highly so.’</p> +<p>‘It used to be considered,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +‘that Miss Gradgrind was wanting in animation, but I +confess she appears to me considerably and strikingly improved in +that respect. Ay, and indeed here <i>is</i> Mr. +Bounderby!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head a great +many times, as if she had been talking and thinking of no one +else. ‘How do you find yourself this morning, +sir? Pray let us see you cheerful, sir.’</p> +<p>Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and +lightenings of his load, had by this time begun to have the +effect of making Mr. Bounderby softer than usual towards Mrs. +Sparsit, and harder than usual to most other people from his wife +downward. So, when Mrs. Sparsit said with forced lightness +of heart, ‘You want your breakfast, sir, but I dare say +Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to preside at the table,’ +Mr. Bounderby replied, ‘If I waited to be taken care of by +my wife, ma’am, I believe you know pretty well I should +wait till Doomsday, so I’ll trouble <i>you</i> to take +charge of the teapot.’ Mrs. Sparsit complied, and +assumed her old position at table.</p> +<p>This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. +She was so humble withal, that when Louisa appeared, she rose, +protesting she never could think of sitting in that place under +existing circumstances, often as she had had the honour of making +Mr. Bounderby’s breakfast, before Mrs. Gradgrind—she +begged pardon, she meant to say Miss Bounderby—she hoped to +be excused, but she really could not get it right yet, though she +trusted to become familiar with it by and by—had assumed +her present position. It was only (she observed) because +Miss Gradgrind happened to be a little late, and Mr. +Bounderby’s time was so very precious, and she knew it of +old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the moment, +that she had taken the liberty of complying with his request; +long as his will had been a law to her.</p> +<p>‘There! Stop where you are, ma’am,’ +said Mr. Bounderby, ‘stop where you are! Mrs. +Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of the trouble, I +believe.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t say that, sir,’ returned Mrs. +Sparsit, almost with severity, ‘because that is very unkind +to Mrs. Bounderby. And to be unkind is not to be you, +sir.’</p> +<p>‘You may set your mind at rest, ma’am.—You +can take it very quietly, can’t you, Loo?’ said Mr. +Bounderby, in a blustering way to his wife.</p> +<p>‘Of course. It is of no moment. Why should +it be of any importance to me?’</p> +<p>‘Why should it be of any importance to any one, Mrs. +Sparsit, ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby, swelling with a +sense of slight. ‘You attach too much importance to +these things, ma’am. By George, you’ll be +corrupted in some of your notions here. You are +old-fashioned, ma’am. You are behind Tom +Gradgrind’s children’s time.’</p> +<p>‘What is the matter with you?’ asked Louisa, +coldly surprised. ‘What has given you +offence?’</p> +<p>‘Offence!’ repeated Bounderby. ‘Do you +suppose if there was any offence given me, I shouldn’t name +it, and request to have it corrected? I am a +straightforward man, I believe. I don’t go beating +about for side-winds.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too +diffident, or too delicate,’ Louisa answered him +composedly: ‘I have never made that objection to you, +either as a child or as a woman. I don’t understand +what you would have.’</p> +<p>‘Have?’ returned Mr. Bounderby. +‘Nothing. Otherwise, don’t you, Loo Bounderby, +know thoroughly well that I, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, would +have it?’</p> +<p>She looked at him, as he struck the table and made the teacups +ring, with a proud colour in her face that was a new change, Mr. +Harthouse thought. ‘You are incomprehensible this +morning,’ said Louisa. ‘Pray take no further +trouble to explain yourself. I am not curious to know your +meaning. What does it matter?’</p> +<p>Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was +soon idly gay on indifferent subjects. But from this day, +the Sparsit action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa and James +Harthouse more together, and strengthened the dangerous +alienation from her husband and confidence against him with +another, into which she had fallen by degrees so fine that she +could not retrace them if she tried. But whether she ever +tried or no, lay hidden in her own closed heart.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular occasion, +that, assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after breakfast, and +being then alone with him in the hall, she imprinted a chaste +kiss upon his hand, murmured ‘My benefactor!’ and +retired, overwhelmed with grief. Yet it is an indubitable +fact, within the cognizance of this history, that five minutes +after he had left the house in the self-same hat, the same +descendant of the Scadgerses and connexion by matrimony of the +Powlers, shook her right-hand mitten at his portrait, made a +contemptuous grimace at that work of art, and said ‘Serve +you right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, when Bitzer +appeared. Bitzer had come down by train, shrieking and +rattling over the long line of arches that bestrode the wild +country of past and present coal-pits, with an express from Stone +Lodge. It was a hasty note to inform Louisa that Mrs. +Gradgrind lay very ill. She had never been well within her +daughter’s knowledge; but, she had declined within the last +few days, had continued sinking all through the night, and was +now as nearly dead, as her limited capacity of being in any state +that implied the ghost of an intention to get out of it, +allowed.</p> +<p>Accompanied by the lightest of porters, fit colourless +servitor at Death’s door when Mrs. Gradgrind knocked, +Louisa rumbled to Coketown, over the coal-pits past and present, +and was whirled into its smoky jaws. She dismissed the +messenger to his own devices, and rode away to her old home.</p> +<p>She had seldom been there since her marriage. Her father +was usually sifting and sifting at his parliamentary cinder-heap +in London (without being observed to turn up many precious +articles among the rubbish), and was still hard at it in the +national dust-yard. Her mother had taken it rather as a +disturbance than otherwise, to be visited, as she reclined upon +her sofa; young people, Louisa felt herself all unfit for; Sissy +she had never softened to again, since the night when the +stroller’s child had raised her eyes to look at Mr. +Bounderby’s intended wife. She had no inducements to +go back, and had rarely gone.</p> +<p>Neither, as she approached her old home now, did any of the +best influences of old home descend upon her. The dreams of +childhood—its airy fables; its graceful, beautiful, humane, +impossible adornments of the world beyond: so good to be believed +in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown, for then the +least among them rises to the stature of a great Charity in the +heart, suffering little children to come into the midst of it, +and to keep with their pure hands a garden in the stony ways of +this world, wherein it were better for all the children of Adam +that they should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and +not worldly-wise—what had she to do with these? +Remembrances of how she had journeyed to the little that she +knew, by the enchanted roads of what she and millions of innocent +creatures had hoped and imagined; of how, first coming upon +Reason through the tender light of Fancy, she had seen it a +beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as itself; not a grim +Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and +its big dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, never to be +moved by anything but so many calculated tons of +leverage—what had she to do with these? Her +remembrances of home and childhood were remembrances of the +drying up of every spring and fountain in her young heart as it +gushed out. The golden waters were not there. They +were flowing for the fertilization of the land where grapes are +gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles.</p> +<p>She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon her, into +the house and into her mother’s room. Since the time +of her leaving home, Sissy had lived with the rest of the family +on equal terms. Sissy was at her mother’s side; and +Jane, her sister, now ten or twelve years old, was in the +room.</p> +<p>There was great trouble before it could be made known to Mrs. +Gradgrind that her eldest child was there. She reclined, +propped up, from mere habit, on a couch: as nearly in her old +usual attitude, as anything so helpless could be kept in. +She had positively refused to take to her bed; on the ground that +if she did, she would never hear the last of it.</p> +<p>Her feeble voice sounded so far away in her bundle of shawls, +and the sound of another voice addressing her seemed to take such +a long time in getting down to her ears, that she might have been +lying at the bottom of a well. The poor lady was nearer +Truth than she ever had been: which had much to do with it.</p> +<p>On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was there, she replied, at +cross-purposes, that she had never called him by that name since +he married Louisa; that pending her choice of an objectionable +name, she had called him J; and that she could not at present +depart from that regulation, not being yet provided with a +permanent substitute. Louisa had sat by her for some +minutes, and had spoken to her often, before she arrived at a +clear understanding who it was. She then seemed to come to +it all at once.</p> +<p>‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘and I +hope you are going on satisfactorily to yourself. It was +all your father’s doing. He set his heart upon +it. And he ought to know.’</p> +<p>‘I want to hear of you, mother; not of +myself.’</p> +<p>‘You want to hear of me, my dear? That’s +something new, I am sure, when anybody wants to hear of me. +Not at all well, Louisa. Very faint and giddy.’</p> +<p>‘Are you in pain, dear mother?’</p> +<p>‘I think there’s a pain somewhere in the +room,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘but I couldn’t +positively say that I have got it.’</p> +<p>After this strange speech, she lay silent for some time. +Louisa, holding her hand, could feel no pulse; but kissing it, +could see a slight thin thread of life in fluttering motion.</p> +<p>‘You very seldom see your sister,’ said Mrs. +Gradgrind. ‘She grows like you. I wish you +would look at her. Sissy, bring her here.’</p> +<p>She was brought, and stood with her hand in her +sister’s. Louisa had observed her with her arm round +Sissy’s neck, and she felt the difference of this +approach.</p> +<p>‘Do you see the likeness, Louisa?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, mother. I should think her like me. +But—’</p> +<p>‘Eh! Yes, I always say so,’ Mrs. Gradgrind +cried, with unexpected quickness. ‘And that reminds +me. I—I want to speak to you, my dear. Sissy, +my good girl, leave us alone a minute.’ Louisa had +relinquished the hand: had thought that her sister’s was a +better and brighter face than hers had ever been: had seen in it, +not without a rising feeling of resentment, even in that place +and at that time, something of the gentleness of the other face +in the room; the sweet face with the trusting eyes, made paler +than watching and sympathy made it, by the rich dark hair.</p> +<p>Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw her lying with an awful +lull upon her face, like one who was floating away upon some +great water, all resistance over, content to be carried down the +stream. She put the shadow of a hand to her lips again, and +recalled her.</p> +<p>‘You were going to speak to me, mother.’</p> +<p>‘Eh? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You know your +father is almost always away now, and therefore I must write to +him about it.’</p> +<p>‘About what, mother? Don’t be +troubled. About what?’</p> +<p>‘You must remember, my dear, that whenever I have said +anything, on any subject, I have never heard the last of it: and +consequently, that I have long left off saying +anything.’</p> +<p><a id="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>‘I can hear you, mother.’ But, it was +only by dint of bending down to her ear, and at the same time +attentively watching the lips as they moved, that she could link +such faint and broken sounds into any chain of connexion.</p> +<p>‘You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your +brother. Ologies of all kinds from morning to night. +If there is any Ology left, of any description, that has not been +worn to rags in this house, all I can say is, I hope I shall +never hear its name.’</p> +<p>‘I can hear you, mother, when you have strength to go +on.’ This, to keep her from floating away.</p> +<p>‘But there is something—not an Ology at +all—that your father has missed, or forgotten, +Louisa. I don’t know what it is. I have often +sat with Sissy near me, and thought about it. I shall never +get its name now. But your father may. It makes me +restless. I want to write to him, to find out for +God’s sake, what it is. Give me a pen, give me a +pen.’</p> +<p>Even the power of restlessness was gone, except from the poor +head, which could just turn from side to side.</p> +<p>She fancied, however, that her request had been complied with, +and that the pen she could not have held was in her hand. +It matters little what figures of wonderful no-meaning she began +to trace upon her wrappers. The hand soon stopped in the +midst of them; the light that had always been feeble and dim +behind the weak transparency, went out; and even Mrs. Gradgrind, +emerged from the shadow in which man walketh and disquieteth +himself in vain, took upon her the dread solemnity of the sages +and patriarchs.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER X<br> +<span class="GutSmall">MRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASE</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Sparsit’s</span> nerves being +slow to recover their tone, the worthy woman made a stay of some +weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, where, +notwithstanding her anchorite turn of mind based upon her +becoming consciousness of her altered station, she resigned +herself with noble fortitude to lodging, as one may say, in +clover, and feeding on the fat of the land. During the +whole term of this recess from the guardianship of the Bank, Mrs. +Sparsit was a pattern of consistency; continuing to take such +pity on Mr. Bounderby to his face, as is rarely taken on man, and +to call his portrait a Noodle to <i>its</i> face, with the +greatest acrimony and contempt.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive composition +that Mrs. Sparsit was a highly superior woman to perceive that he +had that general cross upon him in his deserts (for he had not +yet settled what it was), and further that Louisa would have +objected to her as a frequent visitor if it had comported with +his greatness that she should object to anything he chose to do, +resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So when +her nerves were strung up to the pitch of again consuming +sweetbreads in solitude, he said to her at the dinner-table, on +the day before her departure, ‘I tell you what, +ma’am; you shall come down here of a Saturday, while the +fine weather lasts, and stay till Monday.’ To which +Mrs. Sparsit returned, in effect, though not of the Mahomedan +persuasion: ‘To hear is to obey.’</p> +<p>Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman; but she took an +idea in the nature of an allegorical fancy, into her head. +Much watching of Louisa, and much consequent observation of her +impenetrable demeanour, which keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. +Sparsit’s edge, must have given her as it were a lift, in +the way of inspiration. She erected in her mind a mighty +Staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and +down those stairs, from day to day and hour to hour, she saw +Louisa coming.</p> +<p>It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit’s life, to look +up at her staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down. +Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, sometimes several steps at +one bout, sometimes stopping, never turning back. If she +had once turned back, it might have been the death of Mrs. +Sparsit in spleen and grief.</p> +<p>She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on the day, +when Mr. Bounderby issued the weekly invitation recorded +above. Mrs. Sparsit was in good spirits, and inclined to be +conversational.</p> +<p>‘And pray, sir,’ said she, ‘if I may venture +to ask a question appertaining to any subject on which you show +reserve—which is indeed hardy in me, for I well know you +have a reason for everything you do—have you received +intelligence respecting the robbery?’</p> +<p>‘Why, ma’am, no; not yet. Under the +circumstances, I didn’t expect it yet. Rome +wasn’t built in a day, ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘Very true, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her +head.</p> +<p>‘Nor yet in a week, ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a +gentle melancholy upon her.</p> +<p>‘In a similar manner, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby, ‘I can wait, you know. If Romulus and +Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait. They were +better off in their youth than I was, however. They had a +she-wolf for a nurse; I had only a she-wolf for a +grandmother. She didn’t give any milk, ma’am; +she gave bruises. She was a regular Alderney at +that.’</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered.</p> +<p>‘No, ma’am,’ continued Bounderby, ‘I +have not heard anything more about it. It’s in hand, +though; and young Tom, who rather sticks to business at +present—something new for him; he hadn’t the +schooling <i>I</i> had—is helping. My injunction is, +Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow over. Do what you +like under the rose, but don’t give a sign of what +you’re about; or half a hundred of ’em will combine +together and get this fellow who has bolted, out of reach for +good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves will grow in +confidence by little and little, and we shall have +’em.’</p> +<p>‘Very sagacious indeed, sir,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit. ‘Very interesting. The old woman you +mentioned, sir—’</p> +<p>‘The old woman I mentioned, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby, cutting the matter short, as it was nothing to boast +about, ‘is not laid hold of; but, she may take her oath she +will be, if that is any satisfaction to her villainous old +mind. In the mean time, ma’am, I am of opinion, if +you ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked about, the +better.’</p> +<p>The same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting +from her packing operations, looked towards her great staircase +and saw Louisa still descending.</p> +<p>She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking +very low; he stood leaning over her, as they whispered together, +and his face almost touched her hair. ‘If not +quite!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, straining her hawk’s eyes +to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant to hear a word +of their discourse, or even to know that they were speaking +softly, otherwise than from the expression of their figures; but +what they said was this:</p> +<p>‘You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, perfectly!’</p> +<p>‘His face, and his manner, and what he said?’</p> +<p>‘Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he +appeared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy in the +extreme. It was knowing to hold forth, in the humble-virtue +school of eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at the time, +“My good fellow, you are over-doing this!”’</p> +<p>‘It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that +man.’</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa—as Tom says.’ Which he +never did say. ‘You know no good of the +fellow?’</p> +<p>‘No, certainly.’</p> +<p>‘Nor of any other such person?’</p> +<p>‘How can I,’ she returned, with more of her first +manner on her than he had lately seen, ‘when I know nothing +of them, men or women?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submissive +representation of your devoted friend, who knows something of +several varieties of his excellent fellow-creatures—for +excellent they are, I am quite ready to believe, in spite of such +little foibles as always helping themselves to what they can get +hold of. This fellow talks. Well; every fellow +talks. He professes morality. Well; all sorts of +humbugs profess morality. From the House of Commons to the +House of Correction, there is a general profession of morality, +except among our people; it really is that exception which makes +our people quite reviving. You saw and heard the +case. Here was one of the fluffy classes pulled up +extremely short by my esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby—who, as +we know, is not possessed of that delicacy which would soften so +tight a hand. The member of the fluffy classes was injured, +exasperated, left the house grumbling, met somebody who proposed +to him to go in for some share in this Bank business, went in, +put something in his pocket which had nothing in it before, and +relieved his mind extremely. Really he would have been an +uncommon, instead of a common, fellow, if he had not availed +himself of such an opportunity. Or he may have originated +it altogether, if he had the cleverness.’</p> +<p>‘I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,’ +returned Louisa, after sitting thoughtful awhile, ‘to be so +ready to agree with you, and to be so lightened in my heart by +what you say.’</p> +<p>‘I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse. I +have talked it over with my friend Tom more than once—of +course I remain on terms of perfect confidence with Tom—and +he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of his. Will you +walk?’</p> +<p>They strolled away, among the lanes beginning to be indistinct +in the twilight—she leaning on his arm—and she little +thought how she was going down, down, down, Mrs. Sparsit’s +staircase.</p> +<p>Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing. When +Louisa had arrived at the bottom and disappeared in the gulf, it +might fall in upon her if it would; but, until then, there it was +to be, a Building, before Mrs. Sparsit’s eyes. And +there Louisa always was, upon it.</p> +<p>And always gliding down, down, down!</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come and go; she heard of him +here and there; she saw the changes of the face he had studied; +she, too, remarked to a nicety how and when it clouded, how and +when it cleared; she kept her black eyes wide open, with no touch +of pity, with no touch of compunction, all absorbed in +interest. In the interest of seeing her, ever drawing, with +no hand to stay her, nearer and nearer to the bottom of this new +Giant’s Staircase.</p> +<p>With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby as +contradistinguished from his portrait, Mrs. Sparsit had not the +smallest intention of interrupting the descent. Eager to +see it accomplished, and yet patient, she waited for the last +fall, as for the ripeness and fulness of the harvest of her +hopes. Hushed in expectancy, she kept her wary gaze upon +the stairs; and seldom so much as darkly shook her right mitten +(with her fist in it), at the figure coming down.</p> +<h3><a id="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>CHAPTER XI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">LOWER AND LOWER</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> figure descended the great +stairs, steadily, steadily; always verging, like a weight in deep +water, to the black gulf at the bottom.</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife’s decease, made an +expedition from London, and buried her in a business-like +manner. He then returned with promptitude to the national +cinder-heap, and resumed his sifting for the odds and ends he +wanted, and his throwing of the dust about into the eyes of other +people who wanted other odds and ends—in fact resumed his +parliamentary duties.</p> +<p>In the meantime, Mrs. Sparsit kept unwinking watch and +ward. Separated from her staircase, all the week, by the +length of iron road dividing Coketown from the country house, she +yet maintained her cat-like observation of Louisa, through her +husband, through her brother, through James Harthouse, through +the outsides of letters and packets, through everything animate +and inanimate that at any time went near the stairs. +‘Your foot on the last step, my lady,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, apostrophizing the descending figure, with the aid of +her threatening mitten, ‘and all your art shall never blind +me.’</p> +<p>Art or nature though, the original stock of Louisa’s +character or the graft of circumstances upon it,—her +curious reserve did baffle, while it stimulated, one as sagacious +as Mrs. Sparsit. There were times when Mr. James Harthouse +was not sure of her. There were times when he could not +read the face he had studied so long; and when this lonely girl +was a greater mystery to him, than any woman of the world with a +ring of satellites to help her.</p> +<p>So the time went on; until it happened that Mr. Bounderby was +called away from home by business which required his presence +elsewhere, for three or four days. It was on a Friday that +he intimated this to Mrs. Sparsit at the Bank, adding: ‘But +you’ll go down to-morrow, ma’am, all the same. +You’ll go down just as if I was there. It will make +no difference to you.’</p> +<p>‘Pray, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, reproachfully, +‘let me beg you not to say that. Your absence will +make a vast difference to me, sir, as I think you very well +know.’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am, then you must get on in my absence +as well as you can,’ said Mr. Bounderby, not +displeased.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Bounderby,’ retorted Mrs. Sparsit, +‘your will is to me a law, sir; otherwise, it might be my +inclination to dispute your kind commands, not feeling sure that +it will be quite so agreeable to Miss Gradgrind to receive me, as +it ever is to your own munificent hospitality. But you +shall say no more, sir. I will go, upon your +invitation.’</p> +<p>‘Why, when I invite you to my house, ma’am,’ +said Bounderby, opening his eyes, ‘I should hope you want +no other invitation.’</p> +<p>‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I +should hope not. Say no more, sir. I would, sir, I +could see you gay again.’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean, ma’am?’ blustered +Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, ‘there was +wont to be an elasticity in you which I sadly miss. Be +buoyant, sir!’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this difficult +adjuration, backed up by her compassionate eye, could only +scratch his head in a feeble and ridiculous manner, and +afterwards assert himself at a distance, by being heard to bully +the small fry of business all the morning.</p> +<p>‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon, when +her patron was gone on his journey, and the Bank was closing, +‘present my compliments to young Mr. Thomas, and ask him if +he would step up and partake of a lamb chop and walnut ketchup, +with a glass of India ale?’ Young Mr. Thomas being +usually ready for anything in that way, returned a gracious +answer, and followed on its heels. ‘Mr. +Thomas,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘these plain viands being +on table, I thought you might be tempted.’</p> +<p>‘Thank’ee, Mrs. Sparsit,’ said the +whelp. And gloomily fell to.</p> +<p>‘How is Mr. Harthouse, Mr. Tom?’ asked Mrs. +Sparsit.</p> +<p>‘Oh, he’s all right,’ said Tom.</p> +<p>‘Where may he be at present?’ Mrs. Sparsit asked +in a light conversational manner, after mentally devoting the +whelp to the Furies for being so uncommunicative.</p> +<p>‘He is shooting in Yorkshire,’ said Tom. +‘Sent Loo a basket half as big as a church, +yesterday.’</p> +<p>‘The kind of gentleman, now,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +sweetly, ‘whom one might wager to be a good +shot!’</p> +<p>‘Crack,’ said Tom.</p> +<p>He had long been a down-looking young fellow, but this +characteristic had so increased of late, that he never raised his +eyes to any face for three seconds together. Mrs. Sparsit +consequently had ample means of watching his looks, if she were +so inclined.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Harthouse is a great favourite of mine,’ said +Mrs. Sparsit, ‘as indeed he is of most people. May we +expect to see him again shortly, Mr. Tom?’</p> +<p>‘Why, <i>I</i> expect to see him to-morrow,’ +returned the whelp.</p> +<p>‘Good news!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, blandly.</p> +<p>‘I have got an appointment with him to meet him in the +evening at the station here,’ said Tom, ‘and I am +going to dine with him afterwards, I believe. He is not +coming down to the country house for a week or so, being due +somewhere else. At least, he says so; but I shouldn’t +wonder if he was to stop here over Sunday, and stray that +way.’</p> +<p>‘Which reminds me!’ said Mrs. Sparsit. +‘Would you remember a message to your sister, Mr. Tom, if I +was to charge you with one?’</p> +<p>‘Well? I’ll try,’ returned the +reluctant whelp, ‘if it isn’t a long un.’</p> +<p>‘It is merely my respectful compliments,’ said +Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and I fear I may not trouble her with my +society this week; being still a little nervous, and better +perhaps by my poor self.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! If that’s all,’ observed Tom, +‘it wouldn’t much matter, even if I was to forget it, +for Loo’s not likely to think of you unless she sees +you.’</p> +<p>Having paid for his entertainment with this agreeable +compliment, he relapsed into a hangdog silence until there was no +more India ale left, when he said, ‘Well, Mrs. Sparsit, I +must be off!’ and went off.</p> +<p>Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at her window all day +long looking at the customers coming in and out, watching the +postmen, keeping an eye on the general traffic of the street, +revolving many things in her mind, but, above all, keeping her +attention on her staircase. The evening come, she put on +her bonnet and shawl, and went quietly out: having her reasons +for hovering in a furtive way about the station by which a +passenger would arrive from Yorkshire, and for preferring to peep +into it round pillars and corners, and out of ladies’ +waiting-room windows, to appearing in its precincts openly.</p> +<p>Tom was in attendance, and loitered about until the expected +train came in. It brought no Mr. Harthouse. Tom +waited until the crowd had dispersed, and the bustle was over; +and then referred to a posted list of trains, and took counsel +with porters. That done, he strolled away idly, stopping in +the street and looking up it and down it, and lifting his hat off +and putting it on again, and yawning and stretching himself, and +exhibiting all the symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in +one who had still to wait until the next train should come in, an +hour and forty minutes hence.</p> +<p>‘This is a device to keep him out of the way,’ +said Mrs. Sparsit, starting from the dull office window whence +she had watched him last. ‘Harthouse is with his +sister now!’</p> +<p>It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she shot off +with her utmost swiftness to work it out. The station for +the country house was at the opposite end of the town, the time +was short, the road not easy; but she was so quick in pouncing on +a disengaged coach, so quick in darting out of it, producing her +money, seizing her ticket, and diving into the train, that she +was borne along the arches spanning the land of coal-pits past +and present, as if she had been caught up in a cloud and whirled +away.</p> +<p>All the journey, immovable in the air though never left +behind; plain to the dark eyes of her mind, as the electric wires +which ruled a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening +sky, were plain to the dark eyes of her body; Mrs. Sparsit saw +her staircase, with the figure coming down. Very near the +bottom now. Upon the brink of the abyss.</p> +<p>An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw beneath +its drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass +down the wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, +cross it into a green lane, and become hidden in a summer-growth +of leaves and branches. One or two late birds sleepily +chirping in their nests, and a bat heavily crossing and +recrossing her, and the reek of her own tread in the thick dust +that felt like velvet, were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until +she very softly closed a gate.</p> +<p>She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and +went round it, peeping between the leaves at the lower +windows. Most of them were open, as they usually were in +such warm weather, but there were no lights yet, and all was +silent. She tried the garden with no better effect. +She thought of the wood, and stole towards it, heedless of long +grass and briers: of worms, snails, and slugs, and all the +creeping things that be. With her dark eyes and her hook +nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. Sparsit softly crushed her +way through the thick undergrowth, so intent upon her object that +she probably would have done no less, if the wood had been a wood +of adders.</p> +<p>Hark!</p> +<p>The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their nests, +fascinated by the glittering of Mrs. Sparsit’s eyes in the +gloom, as she stopped and listened.</p> +<p>Low voices close at hand. His voice and hers. The +appointment <i>was</i> a device to keep the brother away! +There they were yonder, by the felled tree.</p> +<p>Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. Sparsit advanced closer +to them. She drew herself up, and stood behind a tree, like +Robinson Crusoe in his ambuscade against the savages; so near to +them that at a spring, and that no great one, she could have +touched them both. He was there secretly, and had not shown +himself at the house. He had come on horseback, and must +have passed through the neighbouring fields; for his horse was +tied to the meadow side of the fence, within a few paces.</p> +<p>‘My dearest love,’ said he, ‘what could I +do? Knowing you were alone, was it possible that I could +stay away?’</p> +<p>‘You may hang your head, to make yourself the more +attractive; <i>I</i> don’t know what they see in you when +you hold it up,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit; ‘but you +little think, my dearest love, whose eyes are on you!’</p> +<p>That she hung her head, was certain. She urged him to go +away, she commanded him to go away; but she neither turned her +face to him, nor raised it. Yet it was remarkable that she +sat as still as ever the amiable woman in ambuscade had seen her +sit, at any period in her life. Her hands rested in one +another, like the hands of a statue; and even her manner of +speaking was not hurried.</p> +<p>‘My dear child,’ said Harthouse; Mrs. Sparsit saw +with delight that his arm embraced her; ‘will you not bear +with my society for a little while?’</p> +<p>‘Not here.’</p> +<p>‘Where, Louisa?</p> +<p>‘Not here.’</p> +<p>‘But we have so little time to make so much of, and I +have come so far, and am altogether so devoted, and +distracted. There never was a slave at once so devoted and +ill-used by his mistress. To look for your sunny welcome +that has warmed me into life, and to be received in your frozen +manner, is heart-rending.’</p> +<p>‘Am I to say again, that I must be left to myself +here?’</p> +<p>‘But we must meet, my dear Louisa. Where shall we +meet?’</p> +<p>They both started. The listener started, guiltily, too; +for she thought there was another listener among the trees. +It was only rain, beginning to fall fast, in heavy drops.</p> +<p>‘Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, +innocently supposing that its master is at home and will be +charmed to receive me?’</p> +<p>‘No!’</p> +<p>‘Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed; though +I am the most unfortunate fellow in the world, I believe, to have +been insensible to all other women, and to have fallen prostrate +at last under the foot of the most beautiful, and the most +engaging, and the most imperious. My dearest Louisa, I +cannot go myself, or let you go, in this hard abuse of your +power.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling arm, and +heard him then and there, within her (Mrs. Sparsit’s) +greedy hearing, tell her how he loved her, and how she was the +stake for which he ardently desired to play away all that he had +in life. The objects he had lately pursued, turned +worthless beside her; such success as was almost in his grasp, he +flung away from him like the dirt it was, compared with +her. Its pursuit, nevertheless, if it kept him near her, or +its renunciation if it took him from her, or flight if she shared +it, or secrecy if she commanded it, or any fate, or every fate, +all was alike to him, so that she was true to him,—the man +who had seen how cast away she was, whom she had inspired at +their first meeting with an admiration, an interest, of which he +had thought himself incapable, whom she had received into her +confidence, who was devoted to her and adored her. All +this, and more, in his hurry, and in hers, in the whirl of her +own gratified malice, in the dread of being discovered, in the +rapidly increasing noise of heavy rain among the leaves, and a +thunderstorm rolling up—Mrs. Sparsit received into her +mind, set off with such an unavoidable halo of confusion and +indistinctness, that when at length he climbed the fence and led +his horse away, she was not sure where they were to meet, or +when, except that they had said it was to be that night.</p> +<p>But one of them yet remained in the darkness before her; and +while she tracked that one she must be right. ‘Oh, my +dearest love,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you little +think how well attended you are!’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her enter the +house. What to do next? It rained now, in a sheet of +water. Mrs. Sparsit’s white stockings were of many +colours, green predominating; prickly things were in her shoes; +caterpillars slung themselves, in hammocks of their own making, +from various parts of her dress; rills ran from her bonnet, and +her Roman nose. In such condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood +hidden in the density of the shrubbery, considering what +next?</p> +<p>Lo, Louisa coming out of the house! Hastily cloaked and +muffled, and stealing away. She elopes! She falls +from the lowermost stair, and is swallowed up in the gulf.</p> +<p>Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined +step, she struck into a side-path parallel with the ride. +Mrs. Sparsit followed in the shadow of the trees, at but a short +distance; for it was not easy to keep a figure in view going +quickly through the umbrageous darkness.</p> +<p>When she stopped to close the side-gate without noise, Mrs. +Sparsit stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit went +on. She went by the way Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged from +the green lane, crossed the stony road, and ascended the wooden +steps to the railroad. A train for Coketown would come +through presently, Mrs. Sparsit knew; so she understood Coketown +to be her first place of destination.</p> +<p>In Mrs. Sparsit’s limp and streaming state, no extensive +precautions were necessary to change her usual appearance; but, +she stopped under the lee of the station wall, tumbled her shawl +into a new shape, and put it on over her bonnet. So +disguised she had no fear of being recognized when she followed +up the railroad steps, and paid her money in the small +office. Louisa sat waiting in a corner. Mrs. Sparsit +sat waiting in another corner. Both listened to the +thunder, which was loud, and to the rain, as it washed off the +roof, and pattered on the parapets of the arches. Two or +three lamps were rained out and blown out; so, both saw the +lightning to advantage as it quivered and zigzagged on the iron +tracks.</p> +<p>The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, gradually +deepening to a complaint of the heart, announced the train. +Fire and steam, and smoke, and red light; a hiss, a crash, a +bell, and a shriek; Louisa put into one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit +put into another: the little station a desert speck in the +thunderstorm.</p> +<p>Though her teeth chattered in her head from wet and cold, Mrs. +Sparsit exulted hugely. The figure had plunged down the +precipice, and she felt herself, as it were, attending on the +body. Could she, who had been so active in the getting up +of the funeral triumph, do less than exult? ‘She will +be at Coketown long before him,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, +‘though his horse is never so good. Where will she +wait for him? And where will they go together? +Patience. We shall see.’</p> +<p>The tremendous rain occasioned infinite confusion, when the +train stopped at its destination. Gutters and pipes had +burst, drains had overflowed, and streets were under water. +In the first instant of alighting, Mrs. Sparsit turned her +distracted eyes towards the waiting coaches, which were in great +request. ‘She will get into one,’ she +considered, ‘and will be away before I can follow in +another. At all risks of being run over, I must see the +number, and hear the order given to the coachman.’</p> +<p>But, Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calculation. Louisa +got into no coach, and was already gone. The black eyes +kept upon the railroad-carriage in which she had travelled, +settled upon it a moment too late. The door not being +opened after several minutes, Mrs. Sparsit passed it and repassed +it, saw nothing, looked in, and found it empty. Wet through +and through: with her feet squelching and squashing in her shoes +whenever she moved; with a rash of rain upon her classical +visage; with a bonnet like an over-ripe fig; with all her clothes +spoiled; with damp impressions of every button, string, and +hook-and-eye she wore, printed off upon her highly connected +back; with a stagnant verdure on her general exterior, such as +accumulates on an old park fence in a mouldy lane; Mrs. Sparsit +had no resource but to burst into tears of bitterness and say, +‘I have lost her!’</p> +<h3><a id="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +163</span>CHAPTER XII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">DOWN</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> national dustmen, after +entertaining one another with a great many noisy little fights +among themselves, had dispersed for the present, and Mr. +Gradgrind was at home for the vacation.</p> +<p>He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical clock, +proving something no doubt—probably, in the main, that the +Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist. The noise of the rain +did not disturb him much; but it attracted his attention +sufficiently to make him raise his head sometimes, as if he were +rather remonstrating with the elements. When it thundered +very loudly, he glanced towards Coketown, having it in his mind +that some of the tall chimneys might be struck by lightning.</p> +<p>The thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain was +pouring down like a deluge, when the door of his room +opened. He looked round the lamp upon his table, and saw, +with amazement, his eldest daughter.</p> +<p>‘Louisa!’</p> +<p>‘Father, I want to speak to you.’</p> +<p>‘What is the matter? How strange you look! +And good Heaven,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, wondering more and +more, ‘have you come here exposed to this storm?’</p> +<p>She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly knew. +‘Yes.’ Then she uncovered her head, and letting +her cloak and hood fall where they might, stood looking at him: +so colourless, so dishevelled, so defiant and despairing, that he +was afraid of her.</p> +<p>‘What is it? I conjure you, Louisa, tell me what +is the matter.’</p> +<p>She dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold hand on +his arm.</p> +<p>‘Father, you have trained me from my cradle?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘I curse the hour in which I was born to such a +destiny.’</p> +<p>He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: +‘Curse the hour? Curse the hour?’</p> +<p>‘How could you give me life, and take from me all the +inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious +death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the +sentiments of my heart? What have you done, O father, what +have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in +this great wilderness here!’</p> +<p>She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom.</p> +<p>‘If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me +from the void in which my whole life sinks. I did not mean +to say this; but, father, you remember the last time we conversed +in this room?’</p> +<p>He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that +it was with difficulty he answered, ‘Yes, +Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to my +lips then, if you had given me a moment’s help. I +don’t reproach you, father. What you have never +nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself; but O! if +you had only done so long ago, or if you had only neglected me, +what a much better and much happier creature I should have been +this day!’</p> +<p>On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon +his hand and groaned aloud.</p> +<p>‘Father, if you had known, when we were last together +here, what even I feared while I strove against it—as it +has been my task from infancy to strive against every natural +prompting that has arisen in my heart; if you had known that +there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, affections, +weaknesses capable of being cherished into strength, defying all +the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to his +arithmetic than his Creator is,—would you have given me to +the husband whom I am now sure that I hate?’</p> +<p>He said, ‘No. No, my poor child.’</p> +<p>‘Would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost and +blight that have hardened and spoiled me? Would you have +robbed me—for no one’s enrichment—only for the +greater desolation of this world—of the immaterial part of +my life, the spring and summer of my belief, my refuge from what +is sordid and bad in the real things around me, my school in +which I should have learned to be more humble and more trusting +with them, and to hope in my little sphere to make them +better?’</p> +<p>‘O no, no. No, Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘Yet, father, if I had been stone blind; if I had groped +my way by my sense of touch, and had been free, while I knew the +shapes and surfaces of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat, in +regard to them; I should have been a million times wiser, +happier, more loving, more contented, more innocent and human in +all good respects, than I am with the eyes I have. Now, +hear what I have come to say.’</p> +<p>He moved, to support her with his arm. She rising as he +did so, they stood close together: she, with a hand upon his +shoulder, looking fixedly in his face.</p> +<p>‘With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which have +never been for a moment appeased; with an ardent impulse towards +some region where rules, and figures, and definitions were not +quite absolute; I have grown up, battling every inch of my +way.’</p> +<p>‘I never knew you were unhappy, my child.’</p> +<p>‘Father, I always knew it. In this strife I have +almost repulsed and crushed my better angel into a demon. +What I have learned has left me doubting, misbelieving, +despising, regretting, what I have not learned; and my dismal +resource has been to think that life would soon go by, and that +nothing in it could be worth the pain and trouble of a +contest.’</p> +<p>‘And you so young, Louisa!’ he said with pity.</p> +<p>‘And I so young. In this condition, +father—for I show you now, without fear or favour, the +ordinary deadened state of my mind as I know it—you +proposed my husband to me. I took him. I never made a +pretence to him or you that I loved him. I knew, and, +father, you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I was not +wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and useful +to Tom. I made that wild escape into something visionary, +and have slowly found out how wild it was. But Tom had been +the subject of all the little tenderness of my life; perhaps he +became so because I knew so well how to pity him. It +matters little now, except as it may dispose you to think more +leniently of his errors.’</p> +<p>As her father held her in his arms, she put her other hand +upon his other shoulder, and still looking fixedly in his face, +went on.</p> +<p>‘When I was irrevocably married, there rose up into +rebellion against the tie, the old strife, made fiercer by all +those causes of disparity which arise out of our two individual +natures, and which no general laws shall ever rule or state for +me, father, until they shall be able to direct the anatomist +where to strike his knife into the secrets of my soul.’</p> +<p>‘Louisa!’ he said, and said imploringly; for he +well remembered what had passed between them in their former +interview.</p> +<p>‘I do not reproach you, father, I make no +complaint. I am here with another object.’</p> +<p>‘What can I do, child? Ask me what you +will.’</p> +<p>‘I am coming to it. Father, chance then threw into +my way a new acquaintance; a man such as I had had no experience +of; used to the world; light, polished, easy; making no +pretences; avowing the low estimate of everything, that I was +half afraid to form in secret; conveying to me almost +immediately, though I don’t know how or by what degrees, +that he understood me, and read my thoughts. I could not +find that he was worse than I. There seemed to be a near +affinity between us. I only wondered it should be worth his +while, who cared for nothing else, to care so much for +me.’</p> +<p>‘For you, Louisa!’</p> +<p>Her father might instinctively have loosened his hold, but +that he felt her strength departing from her, and saw a wild +dilating fire in the eyes steadfastly regarding him.</p> +<p>‘I say nothing of his plea for claiming my +confidence. It matters very little how he gained it. +Father, he did gain it. What you know of the story of my +marriage, he soon knew, just as well.’</p> +<p>Her father’s face was ashy white, and he held her in +both his arms.</p> +<p>‘I have done no worse, I have not disgraced you. +But if you ask me whether I have loved him, or do love him, I +tell you plainly, father, that it may be so. I don’t +know.’</p> +<p>She took her hands suddenly from his shoulders, and pressed +them both upon her side; while in her face, not like +itself—and in her figure, drawn up, resolute to finish by a +last effort what she had to say—the feelings long +suppressed broke loose.</p> +<p>‘This night, my husband being away, he has been with me, +declaring himself my lover. This minute he expects me, for +I could release myself of his presence by no other means. I +do not know that I am sorry, I do not know that I am ashamed, I +do not know that I am degraded in my own esteem. All that I +know is, your philosophy and your teaching will not save +me. Now, father, you have brought me to this. Save me +by some other means!’</p> +<p>He tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking on the +floor, but she cried out in a terrible voice, ‘I shall die +if you hold me! Let me fall upon the ground!’ +And he laid her down there, and saw the pride of his heart and +the triumph of his system, lying, an insensible heap, at his +feet.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">END OF THE +SECOND BOOK</span></p> +<h2><a id="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>BOOK +THE THIRD<br> +<i>GARNERING</i></h2> +<h3>CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="GutSmall">ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Louisa</span> awoke from a torpor, and her +eyes languidly opened on her old bed at home, and her old +room. It seemed, at first, as if all that had happened +since the days when these objects were familiar to her were the +shadows of a dream, but gradually, as the objects became more +real to her sight, the events became more real to her mind.</p> +<p>She could scarcely move her head for pain and heaviness, her +eyes were strained and sore, and she was very weak. A +curious passive inattention had such possession of her, that the +presence of her little sister in the room did not attract her +notice for some time. Even when their eyes had met, and her +sister had approached the bed, Louisa lay for minutes looking at +her in silence, and suffering her timidly to hold her passive +hand, before she asked:</p> +<p>‘When was I brought to this room?’</p> +<p>‘Last night, Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘Who brought me here?’</p> +<p>‘Sissy, I believe.’</p> +<p>‘Why do you believe so?’</p> +<p>‘Because I found her here this morning. She +didn’t come to my bedside to wake me, as she always does; +and I went to look for her. She was not in her own room +either; and I went looking for her all over the house, until I +found her here taking care of you and cooling your head. +Will you see father? Sissy said I was to tell him when you +woke.’</p> +<p>‘What a beaming face you have, Jane!’ said Louisa, +as her young sister—timidly still—bent down to kiss +her.</p> +<p>‘Have I? I am very glad you think so. I am +sure it must be Sissy’s doing.’</p> +<p>The arm Louisa had begun to twine around her neck, unbent +itself. ‘You can tell father if you +will.’ Then, staying her for a moment, she said, +‘It was you who made my room so cheerful, and gave it this +look of welcome?’</p> +<p>‘Oh no, Louisa, it was done before I came. It +was—’</p> +<p>Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard no more. When +her sister had withdrawn, she turned her head back again, and lay +with her face towards the door, until it opened and her father +entered.</p> +<p>He had a jaded anxious look upon him, and his hand, usually +steady, trembled in hers. He sat down at the side of the +bed, tenderly asking how she was, and dwelling on the necessity +of her keeping very quiet after her agitation and exposure to the +weather last night. He spoke in a subdued and troubled +voice, very different from his usual dictatorial manner; and was +often at a loss for words.</p> +<p>‘My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.’ He +was so much at a loss at that place, that he stopped +altogether. He tried again.</p> +<p>‘My unfortunate child.’ The place was so +difficult to get over, that he tried again.</p> +<p>‘It would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to endeavour to +tell you how overwhelmed I have been, and still am, by what broke +upon me last night. The ground on which I stand has ceased +to be solid under my feet. The only support on which I +leaned, and the strength of which it seemed, and still does seem, +impossible to question, has given way in an instant. I am +stunned by these discoveries. I have no selfish meaning in +what I say; but I find the shock of what broke upon me last +night, to be very heavy indeed.’</p> +<p>She could give him no comfort herein. She had suffered +the wreck of her whole life upon the rock.</p> +<p>‘I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by any happy +chance undeceived me some time ago, it would have been better for +us both; better for your peace, and better for mine. For I +am sensible that it may not have been a part of my system to +invite any confidence of that kind. I had proved +my—my system to myself, and I have rigidly administered it; +and I must bear the responsibility of its failures. I only +entreat you to believe, my favourite child, that I have meant to +do right.’</p> +<p>He said it earnestly, and to do him justice he had. In +gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean excise-rod, and in +staggering over the universe with his rusty stiff-legged +compasses, he had meant to do great things. Within the +limits of his short tether he had tumbled about, annihilating the +flowers of existence with greater singleness of purpose than many +of the blatant personages whose company he kept.</p> +<p>‘I am well assured of what you say, father. I know +I have been your favourite child. I know you have intended +to make me happy. I have never blamed you, and I never +shall.’</p> +<p>He took her outstretched hand, and retained it in his.</p> +<p>‘My dear, I have remained all night at my table, +pondering again and again on what has so painfully passed between +us. When I consider your character; when I consider that +what has been known to me for hours, has been concealed by you +for years; when I consider under what immediate pressure it has +been forced from you at last; I come to the conclusion that I +cannot but mistrust myself.’</p> +<p>He might have added more than all, when he saw the face now +looking at him. He did add it in effect, perhaps, as he +softly moved her scattered hair from her forehead with his +hand. Such little actions, slight in another man, were very +noticeable in him; and his daughter received them as if they had +been words of contrition.</p> +<p>‘But,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with +hesitation, as well as with a wretched sense of happiness, +‘if I see reason to mistrust myself for the past, Louisa, I +should also mistrust myself for the present and the future. +To speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am far from feeling +convinced now, however differently I might have felt only this +time yesterday, that I am fit for the trust you repose in me; +that I know how to respond to the appeal you have come home to +make to me; that I have the right instinct—supposing it for +the moment to be some quality of that nature—how to help +you, and to set you right, my child.’</p> +<p>She had turned upon her pillow, and lay with her face upon her +arm, so that he could not see it. All her wildness and +passion had subsided; but, though softened, she was not in +tears. Her father was changed in nothing so much as in the +respect that he would have been glad to see her in tears.</p> +<p>‘Some persons hold,’ he pursued, still hesitating, +‘that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a +wisdom of the Heart. I have not supposed so; but, as I have +said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed the head to be +all-sufficient. It may not be all-sufficient; how can I +venture this morning to say it is! If that other kind of +wisdom should be what I have neglected, and should be the +instinct that is wanted, Louisa—’</p> +<p>He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he were half unwilling +to admit it even now. She made him no answer, lying before +him on her bed, still half-dressed, much as he had seen her lying +on the floor of his room last night.</p> +<p>‘Louisa,’ and his hand rested on her hair again, +‘I have been absent from here, my dear, a good deal of +late; and though your sister’s training has been pursued +according to—the system,’ he appeared to come to that +word with great reluctance always, ‘it has necessarily been +modified by daily associations begun, in her case, at an early +age. I ask you—ignorantly and humbly, my +daughter—for the better, do you think?’</p> +<p>‘Father,’ she replied, without stirring, ‘if +any harmony has been awakened in her young breast that was mute +in mine until it turned to discord, let her thank Heaven for it, +and go upon her happier way, taking it as her greatest blessing +that she has avoided my way.’</p> +<p>‘O my child, my child!’ he said, in a forlorn +manner, ‘I am an unhappy man to see you thus! What +avails it to me that you do not reproach me, if I so bitterly +reproach myself!’ He bent his head, and spoke low to +her. ‘Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change may +have been slowly working about me in this house, by mere love and +gratitude: that what the Head had left undone and could not do, +the Heart may have been doing silently. Can it be +so?’</p> +<p>She made him no reply.</p> +<p>‘I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How +could I be arrogant, and you before me! Can it be so? +Is it so, my dear?’ He looked upon her once more, +lying cast away there; and without another word went out of the +room. He had not been long gone, when she heard a light +tread near the door, and knew that some one stood beside her.</p> +<p>She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she should +be seen in her distress, and that the involuntary look she had so +resented should come to this fulfilment, smouldered within her +like an unwholesome fire. All closely imprisoned forces +rend and destroy. The air that would be healthful to the +earth, the water that would enrich it, the heat that would ripen +it, tear it when caged up. So in her bosom even now; the +strongest qualities she possessed, long turned upon themselves, +became a heap of obduracy, that rose against a friend.</p> +<p>It was well that soft touch came upon her neck, and that she +understood herself to be supposed to have fallen asleep. +The sympathetic hand did not claim her resentment. Let it +lie there, let it lie.</p> +<p>It lay there, warming into life a crowd of gentler thoughts; +and she rested. As she softened with the quiet, and the +consciousness of being so watched, some tears made their way into +her eyes. The face touched hers, and she knew that there +were tears upon it too, and she the cause of them.</p> +<p>As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat up, Sissy retired, +so that she stood placidly near the bedside.</p> +<p>‘I hope I have not disturbed you. I have come to +ask if you would let me stay with you?’</p> +<p>‘Why should you stay with me? My sister will miss +you. You are everything to her.’</p> +<p>‘Am I?’ returned Sissy, shaking her head. +‘I would be something to you, if I might.’</p> +<p>‘What?’ said Louisa, almost sternly.</p> +<p>‘Whatever you want most, if I could be that. At +all events, I would like to try to be as near it as I can. +And however far off that may be, I will never tire of +trying. Will you let me?’</p> +<p>‘My father sent you to ask me.’</p> +<p>‘No indeed,’ replied Sissy. ‘He told +me that I might come in now, but he sent me away from the room +this morning—or at least—’</p> +<p>She hesitated and stopped.</p> +<p>‘At least, what?’ said Louisa, with her searching +eyes upon her.</p> +<p>‘I thought it best myself that I should be sent away, +for I felt very uncertain whether you would like to find me +here.’</p> +<p>‘Have I always hated you so much?’</p> +<p>‘I hope not, for I have always loved you, and have +always wished that you should know it. But you changed to +me a little, shortly before you left home. Not that I +wondered at it. You knew so much, and I knew so little, and +it was so natural in many ways, going as you were among other +friends, that I had nothing to complain of, and was not at all +hurt.’</p> +<p>Her colour rose as she said it modestly and hurriedly. +Louisa understood the loving pretence, and her heart smote +her.</p> +<p>‘May I try?’ said Sissy, emboldened to raise her +hand to the neck that was insensibly drooping towards her.</p> +<p>Louisa, taking down the hand that would have embraced her in +another moment, held it in one of hers, and answered:</p> +<p>‘First, Sissy, do you know what I am? I am so +proud and so hardened, so confused and troubled, so resentful and +unjust to every one and to myself, that everything is stormy, +dark, and wicked to me. Does not that repel you?’</p> +<p>‘No!’</p> +<p>‘I am so unhappy, and all that should have made me +otherwise is so laid waste, that if I had been bereft of sense to +this hour, and instead of being as learned as you think me, had +to begin to acquire the simplest truths, I could not want a guide +to peace, contentment, honour, all the good of which I am quite +devoid, more abjectly than I do. Does not that repel +you?’</p> +<p>‘No!’</p> +<p>In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up +of her old devoted spirit, the once deserted girl shone like a +beautiful light upon the darkness of the other.</p> +<p>Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp her neck and join +its fellow there. She fell upon her knees, and clinging to +this stroller’s child looked up at her almost with +veneration.</p> +<p>‘Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have compassion on +my great need, and let me lay this head of mine upon a loving +heart!’</p> +<p>‘O lay it here!’ cried Sissy. ‘Lay it +here, my dear.’</p> +<h3><a id="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="GutSmall">VERY RIDICULOUS</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. James Harthouse</span> passed a whole +night and a day in a state of so much hurry, that the World, with +its best glass in his eye, would scarcely have recognized him +during that insane interval, as the brother Jem of the honourable +and jocular member. He was positively agitated. He +several times spoke with an emphasis, similar to the vulgar +manner. He went in and went out in an unaccountable way, +like a man without an object. He rode like a +highwayman. In a word, he was so horribly bored by existing +circumstances, that he forgot to go in for boredom in the manner +prescribed by the authorities.</p> +<p>After putting his horse at Coketown through the storm, as if +it were a leap, he waited up all night: from time to time ringing +his bell with the greatest fury, charging the porter who kept +watch with delinquency in withholding letters or messages that +could not fail to have been entrusted to him, and demanding +restitution on the spot. The dawn coming, the morning +coming, and the day coming, and neither message nor letter coming +with either, he went down to the country house. There, the +report was, Mr. Bounderby away, and Mrs. Bounderby in town. +Left for town suddenly last evening. Not even known to be +gone until receipt of message, importing that her return was not +to be expected for the present.</p> +<p>In these circumstances he had nothing for it but to follow her +to town. He went to the house in town. Mrs. Bounderby +not there. He looked in at the Bank. Mr. Bounderby +away and Mrs. Sparsit away. Mrs. Sparsit away? Who +could have been reduced to sudden extremity for the company of +that griffin!</p> +<p>‘Well! I don’t know,’ said Tom, who +had his own reasons for being uneasy about it. ‘She +was off somewhere at daybreak this morning. She’s +always full of mystery; I hate her. So I do that white +chap; he’s always got his blinking eyes upon a +fellow.’</p> +<p>‘Where were you last night, Tom?’</p> +<p>‘Where was I last night!’ said Tom. +‘Come! I like that. I was waiting for you, Mr. +Harthouse, till it came down as <i>I</i> never saw it come down +before. Where was I too! Where were you, you +mean.’</p> +<p>‘I was prevented from coming—detained.’</p> +<p>‘Detained!’ murmured Tom. ‘Two of us +were detained. I was detained looking for you, till I lost +every train but the mail. It would have been a pleasant job +to go down by that on such a night, and have to walk home through +a pond. I was obliged to sleep in town after +all.’</p> +<p>‘Where?’</p> +<p>‘Where? Why, in my own bed at +Bounderby’s.’</p> +<p>‘Did you see your sister?’</p> +<p>‘How the deuce,’ returned Tom, staring, +‘could I see my sister when she was fifteen miles +off?’</p> +<p>Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman to whom he +was so true a friend, Mr. Harthouse disembarrassed himself of +that interview with the smallest conceivable amount of ceremony, +and debated for the hundredth time what all this could +mean? He made only one thing clear. It was, that +whether she was in town or out of town, whether he had been +premature with her who was so hard to comprehend, or she had lost +courage, or they were discovered, or some mischance or mistake, +at present incomprehensible, had occurred, he must remain to +confront his fortune, whatever it was. The hotel where he +was known to live when condemned to that region of blackness, was +the stake to which he was tied. As to all the +rest—What will be, will be.</p> +<p>‘So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or an +assignation, or a penitent remonstrance, or an impromptu wrestle +with my friend Bounderby in the Lancashire manner—which +would seem as likely as anything else in the present state of +affairs—I’ll dine,’ said Mr. James +Harthouse. ‘Bounderby has the advantage in point of +weight; and if anything of a British nature is to come off +between us, it may be as well to be in training.’</p> +<p>Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing himself negligently on +a sofa, ordered ‘Some dinner at six—with a beefsteak +in it,’ and got through the intervening time as well as he +could. That was not particularly well; for he remained in +the greatest perplexity, and, as the hours went on, and no kind +of explanation offered itself, his perplexity augmented at +compound interest.</p> +<p>However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature +to do, and entertained himself with the facetious idea of the +training more than once. ‘It wouldn’t be +bad,’ he yawned at one time, ‘to give the waiter five +shillings, and throw him.’ At another time it +occurred to him, ‘Or a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen +stone might be hired by the hour.’ But these jests +did not tell materially on the afternoon, or his suspense; and, +sooth to say, they both lagged fearfully.</p> +<p>It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking +about in the pattern of the carpet, looking out of the window, +listening at the door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming +rather hot when any steps approached that room. But, after +dinner, when the day turned to twilight, and the twilight turned +to night, and still no communication was made to him, it began to +be as he expressed it, ‘like the Holy Office and slow +torture.’ However, still true to his conviction that +indifference was the genuine high-breeding (the only conviction +he had), he seized this crisis as the opportunity for ordering +candles and a newspaper.</p> +<p>He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this +newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at once +mysteriously and apologetically:</p> +<p>‘Beg your pardon, sir. You’re wanted, sir, +if you please.’</p> +<p>A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the +Police said to the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the +waiter in return, with bristling indignation, what the Devil he +meant by ‘wanted’?</p> +<p>‘Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, +wishes to see you.’</p> +<p>‘Outside? Where?’</p> +<p>‘Outside this door, sir.’</p> +<p>Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a +block-head duly qualified for that consignment, Mr. Harthouse +hurried into the gallery. A young woman whom he had never +seen stood there. Plainly dressed, very quiet, very +pretty. As he conducted her into the room and placed a +chair for her, he observed, by the light of the candles, that she +was even prettier than he had at first believed. Her face +was innocent and youthful, and its expression remarkably +pleasant. She was not afraid of him, or in any way +disconcerted; she seemed to have her mind entirely preoccupied +with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted that +consideration for herself.</p> +<p>‘I speak to Mr. Harthouse?’ she said, when they +were alone.</p> +<p>‘To Mr. Harthouse.’ He added in his mind, +‘And you speak to him with the most confiding eyes I ever +saw, and the most earnest voice (though so quiet) I ever +heard.’</p> +<p>‘If I do not understand—and I do not, +sir’—said Sissy, ‘what your honour as a +gentleman binds you to, in other matters:’ the blood really +rose in his face as she began in these words: ‘I am sure I +may rely upon it to keep my visit secret, and to keep secret what +I am going to say. I will rely upon it, if you will tell me +I may so far trust—’</p> +<p>‘You may, I assure you.’</p> +<p>‘I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see. +In coming to you, sir, I have no advice or encouragement beyond +my own hope.’ He thought, ‘But that is very +strong,’ as he followed the momentary upward glance of her +eyes. He thought besides, ‘This is a very odd +beginning. I don’t see where we are going.’</p> +<p>‘I think,’ said Sissy, ‘you have already +guessed whom I left just now!’</p> +<p>‘I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness +during the last four-and-twenty hours (which have appeared as +many years),’ he returned, ‘on a lady’s +account. The hopes I have been encouraged to form that you +come from that lady, do not deceive me, I trust.’</p> +<p>‘I left her within an hour.’</p> +<p>‘At—!’</p> +<p>‘At her father’s.’</p> +<p>Mr. Harthouse’s face lengthened in spite of his +coolness, and his perplexity increased. ‘Then I +certainly,’ he thought, ‘do <i>not</i> see where we +are going.’</p> +<p>‘She hurried there last night. She arrived there +in great agitation, and was insensible all through the +night. I live at her father’s, and was with +her. You may be sure, sir, you will never see her again as +long as you live.’</p> +<p>Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath; and, if ever man found +himself in the position of not knowing what to say, made the +discovery beyond all question that he was so circumstanced. +The child-like ingenuousness with which his visitor spoke, her +modest fearlessness, her truthfulness which put all artifice +aside, her entire forgetfulness of herself in her earnest quiet +holding to the object with which she had come; all this, together +with her reliance on his easily given promise—which in +itself shamed him—presented something in which he was so +inexperienced, and against which he knew any of his usual weapons +would fall so powerless; that not a word could he rally to his +relief.</p> +<p>At last he said:</p> +<p>‘So startling an announcement, so confidently made, and +by such lips, is really disconcerting in the last degree. +May I be permitted to inquire, if you are charged to convey that +information to me in those hopeless words, by the lady of whom we +speak?’</p> +<p>‘I have no charge from her.’</p> +<p>‘The drowning man catches at the straw. With no +disrespect for your judgment, and with no doubt of your +sincerity, excuse my saying that I cling to the belief that there +is yet hope that I am not condemned to perpetual exile from that +lady’s presence.’</p> +<p>‘There is not the least hope. The first object of +my coming here, sir, is to assure you that you must believe that +there is no more hope of your ever speaking with her again, than +there would be if she had died when she came home last +night.’</p> +<p>‘Must believe? But if I can’t—or if I +should, by infirmity of nature, be obstinate—and +won’t—’</p> +<p>‘It is still true. There is no hope.’</p> +<p>James Harthouse looked at her with an incredulous smile upon +his lips; but her mind looked over and beyond him, and the smile +was quite thrown away.</p> +<p>He bit his lip, and took a little time for consideration.</p> +<p>‘Well! If it should unhappily appear,’ he +said, ‘after due pains and duty on my part, that I am +brought to a position so desolate as this banishment, I shall not +become the lady’s persecutor. But you said you had no +commission from her?’</p> +<p>‘I have only the commission of my love for her, and her +love for me. I have no other trust, than that I have been +with her since she came home, and that she has given me her +confidence. I have no further trust, than that I know +something of her character and her marriage. O Mr. +Harthouse, I think you had that trust too!’</p> +<p>He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have +been—in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven +would have lived if they had not been whistled away—by the +fervour of this reproach.</p> +<p>‘I am not a moral sort of fellow,’ he said, +‘and I never make any pretensions to the character of a +moral sort of fellow. I am as immoral as need be. At +the same time, in bringing any distress upon the lady who is the +subject of the present conversation, or in unfortunately +compromising her in any way, or in committing myself by any +expression of sentiments towards her, not perfectly reconcilable +with—in fact with—the domestic hearth; or in taking +any advantage of her father’s being a machine, or of her +brother’s being a whelp, or of her husband’s being a +bear; I beg to be allowed to assure you that I have had no +particularly evil intentions, but have glided on from one step to +another with a smoothness so perfectly diabolical, that I had not +the slightest idea the catalogue was half so long until I began +to turn it over. Whereas I find,’ said Mr. James +Harthouse, in conclusion, ‘that it is really in several +volumes.’</p> +<p>Though he said all this in his frivolous way, the way seemed, +for that once, a conscious polishing of but an ugly +surface. He was silent for a moment; and then proceeded +with a more self-possessed air, though with traces of vexation +and disappointment that would not be polished out.</p> +<p>‘After what has been just now represented to me, in a +manner I find it impossible to doubt—I know of hardly any +other source from which I could have accepted it so +readily—I feel bound to say to you, in whom the confidence +you have mentioned has been reposed, that I cannot refuse to +contemplate the possibility (however unexpected) of my seeing the +lady no more. I am solely to blame for the thing having +come to this—and—and, I cannot say,’ he added, +rather hard up for a general peroration, ‘that I have any +sanguine expectation of ever becoming a moral sort of fellow, or +that I have any belief in any moral sort of fellow +whatever.’</p> +<p>Sissy’s face sufficiently showed that her appeal to him +was not finished.</p> +<p>‘You spoke,’ he resumed, as she raised her eyes to +him again, ‘of your first object. I may assume that +there is a second to be mentioned?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Will you oblige me by confiding it?’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Harthouse,’ returned Sissy, with a blending +of gentleness and steadiness that quite defeated him, and with a +simple confidence in his being bound to do what she required, +that held him at a singular disadvantage, ‘the only +reparation that remains with you, is to leave here immediately +and finally. I am quite sure that you can mitigate in no +other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure +that it is the only compensation you have left it in your power +to make. I do not say that it is much, or that it is +enough; but it is something, and it is necessary. +Therefore, though without any other authority than I have given +you, and even without the knowledge of any other person than +yourself and myself, I ask you to depart from this place +to-night, under an obligation never to return to it.’</p> +<p>If she had asserted any influence over him beyond her plain +faith in the truth and right of what she said; if she had +concealed the least doubt or irresolution, or had harboured for +the best purpose any reserve or pretence; if she had shown, or +felt, the lightest trace of any sensitiveness to his ridicule or +his astonishment, or any remonstrance he might offer; he would +have carried it against her at this point. But he could as +easily have changed a clear sky by looking at it in surprise, as +affect her.</p> +<p>‘But do you know,’ he asked, quite at a loss, +‘the extent of what you ask? You probably are not +aware that I am here on a public kind of business, preposterous +enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, and sworn by, and +am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate manner? +You probably are not aware of that, but I assure you it’s +the fact.’</p> +<p>It had no effect on Sissy, fact or no fact.</p> +<p>‘Besides which,’ said Mr. Harthouse, taking a turn +or two across the room, dubiously, ‘it’s so +alarmingly absurd. It would make a man so ridiculous, after +going in for these fellows, to back out in such an +incomprehensible way.’</p> +<p>‘I am quite sure,’ repeated Sissy, ‘that it +is the only reparation in your power, sir. I am quite sure, +or I would not have come here.’</p> +<p>He glanced at her face, and walked about again. +‘Upon my soul, I don’t know what to say. So +immensely absurd!’</p> +<p>It fell to his lot, now, to stipulate for secrecy.</p> +<p>‘If I were to do such a very ridiculous thing,’ he +said, stopping again presently, and leaning against the +chimney-piece, ‘it could only be in the most inviolable +confidence.’</p> +<p>‘I will trust to you, sir,’ returned Sissy, +‘and you will trust to me.’</p> +<p>His leaning against the chimney-piece reminded him of the +night with the whelp. It was the self-same chimney-piece, +and somehow he felt as if <i>he</i> were the whelp +to-night. He could make no way at all.</p> +<p>‘I suppose a man never was placed in a more ridiculous +position,’ he said, after looking down, and looking up, and +laughing, and frowning, and walking off, and walking back +again. ‘But I see no way out of it. What will +be, will be. <i>This</i> will be, I suppose. I must +take off myself, I imagine—in short, I engage to do +it.’</p> +<p>Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the result, but she +was happy in it, and her face beamed brightly.</p> +<p>‘You will permit me to say,’ continued Mr. James +Harthouse, ‘that I doubt if any other ambassador, or +ambassadress, could have addressed me with the same +success. I must not only regard myself as being in a very +ridiculous position, but as being vanquished at all points. +Will you allow me the privilege of remembering my enemy’s +name?’</p> +<p>‘<i>My</i> name?’ said the ambassadress.</p> +<p>‘The only name I could possibly care to know, +to-night.’</p> +<p>‘Sissy Jupe.’</p> +<p>‘Pardon my curiosity at parting. Related to the +family?’</p> +<p>‘I am only a poor girl,’ returned Sissy. +‘I was separated from my father—he was only a +stroller—and taken pity on by Mr. Gradgrind. I have +lived in the house ever since.’</p> +<p>She was gone.</p> +<p>‘It wanted this to complete the defeat,’ said Mr. +James Harthouse, sinking, with a resigned air, on the sofa, after +standing transfixed a little while. ‘The defeat may +now be considered perfectly accomplished. Only a poor +girl—only a stroller—only James Harthouse made +nothing of—only James Harthouse a Great Pyramid of +failure.’</p> +<p>The Great Pyramid put it into his head to go up the +Nile. He took a pen upon the instant, and wrote the +following note (in appropriate hieroglyphics) to his brother:</p> +<blockquote><p>Dear Jack,—All up at Coketown. Bored +out of the place, and going in for camels.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Affectionately,<br> +<span class="smcap">Jem</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He rang the bell.</p> +<p>‘Send my fellow here.’</p> +<p>‘Gone to bed, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Tell him to get up, and pack up.’</p> +<p>He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. Bounderby, +announcing his retirement from that part of the country, and +showing where he would be found for the next fortnight. The +other, similar in effect, to Mr. Gradgrind. Almost as soon +as the ink was dry upon their superscriptions, he had left the +tall chimneys of Coketown behind, <a id="page179"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 179</span>and was in a railway carriage, +tearing and glaring over the dark landscape.</p> +<p>The moral sort of fellows might suppose that Mr. James +Harthouse derived some comfortable reflections afterwards, from +this prompt retreat, as one of his few actions that made any +amends for anything, and as a token to himself that he had +escaped the climax of a very bad business. But it was not +so, at all. A secret sense of having failed and been +ridiculous—a dread of what other fellows who went in for +similar sorts of things, would say at his expense if they knew +it—so oppressed him, that what was about the very best +passage in his life was the one of all others he would not have +owned to on any account, and the only one that made him ashamed +of himself.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="GutSmall">VERY DECIDED</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, +with a violent cold upon her, her voice reduced to a whisper, and +her stately frame so racked by continual sneezes that it seemed +in danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her patron until she +found him in the metropolis; and there, majestically sweeping in +upon him at his hotel in St. James’s Street, exploded the +combustibles with which she was charged, and blew up. +Having executed her mission with infinite relish, this +high-minded woman then fainted away on Mr. Bounderby’s +coat-collar.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby’s first procedure was to shake Mrs. +Sparsit off, and leave her to progress as she might through +various stages of suffering on the floor. He next had +recourse to the administration of potent restoratives, such as +screwing the patient’s thumbs, smiting her hands, +abundantly watering her face, and inserting salt in her +mouth. When these attentions had recovered her (which they +speedily did), he hustled her into a fast train without offering +any other refreshment, and carried her back to Coketown more dead +than alive.</p> +<p>Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting +spectacle on her arrival at her journey’s end; but +considered in any other light, the amount of damage she had by +that time sustained was excessive, and impaired her claims to +admiration. Utterly heedless of the wear and tear of her +clothes and constitution, and adamant to her pathetic sneezes, +Mr. Bounderby immediately crammed her into a coach, and bore her +off to Stone Lodge.</p> +<p>‘Now, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, bursting +into his father-in-law’s room late at night; +‘here’s a lady here—Mrs. Sparsit—you know +Mrs. Sparsit—who has something to say to you that will +strike you dumb.’</p> +<p>‘You have missed my letter!’ exclaimed Mr. +Gradgrind, surprised by the apparition.</p> +<p>‘Missed your letter, sir!’ bawled Bounderby. +‘The present time is no time for letters. No man +shall talk to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown about letters, with +his mind in the state it’s in now.’</p> +<p>‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of +temperate remonstrance, ‘I speak of a very special letter I +have written to you, in reference to Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘Tom Gradgrind,’ replied Bounderby, knocking the +flat of his hand several times with great vehemence on the table, +‘I speak of a very special messenger that has come to me, +in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, stand +forward!’</p> +<p>That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, +without any voice and with painful gestures expressive of an +inflamed throat, became so aggravating and underwent so many +facial contortions, that Mr. Bounderby, unable to bear it, seized +her by the arm and shook her.</p> +<p>‘If you can’t get it out, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby, ‘leave <i>me</i> to get it out. This is +not a time for a lady, however highly connected, to be totally +inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, +Mrs. Sparsit latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation +to overhear a conversation out of doors between your daughter and +your precious gentleman-friend, Mr. James Harthouse.’</p> +<p>‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘Ah! Indeed!’ cried Bounderby. +‘And in that conversation—’</p> +<p>‘It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, +Bounderby. I know what passed.’</p> +<p>‘You do? Perhaps,’ said Bounderby, staring +with all his might at his so quiet and assuasive father-in-law, +‘you know where your daughter is at the present +time!’</p> +<p>‘Undoubtedly. She is here.’</p> +<p>‘Here?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these +loud out-breaks, on all accounts. Louisa is here. The +moment she could detach herself from that interview with the +person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply regret to have been +the means of introducing to you, Louisa hurried here, for +protection. I myself had not been at home many hours, when +I received her—here, in this room. She hurried by the +train to town, she ran from town to this house, through a raging +storm, and presented herself before me in a state of +distraction. Of course, she has remained here ever +since. Let me entreat you, for your own sake and for hers, +to be more quiet.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in +every direction except Mrs. Sparsit’s direction; and then, +abruptly turning upon the niece of Lady Scadgers, said to that +wretched woman:</p> +<p>‘Now, ma’am! We shall be happy to hear any +little apology you may think proper to offer, for going about the +country at express pace, with no other luggage than a +Cock-and-a-Bull, ma’am!’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ whispered Mrs. Sparsit, ‘my nerves +are at present too much shaken, and my health is at present too +much impaired, in your service, to admit of my doing more than +taking refuge in tears.’ (Which she did.)</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, +‘without making any observation to you that may not be made +with propriety to a woman of good family, what I have got to add +to that, is that there is something else in which it appears to +me you may take refuge, namely, a coach. And the coach in +which we came here being at the door, you’ll allow me to +hand you down to it, and pack you home to the Bank: where the +best course for you to pursue, will be to put your feet into the +hottest water you can bear, and take a glass of scalding rum and +butter after you get into bed.’ With these words, Mr. +Bounderby extended his right hand to the weeping lady, and +escorted her to the conveyance in question, shedding many +plaintive sneezes by the way. He soon returned alone.</p> +<p>‘Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that +you wanted to speak to me,’ he resumed, ‘here I +am. But, I am not in a very agreeable state, I tell you +plainly: not relishing this business, even as it is, and not +considering that I am at any time as dutifully and submissively +treated by your daughter, as Josiah Bounderby of Coketown ought +to be treated by his wife. You have your opinion, I dare +say; and I have mine, I know. If you mean to say anything +to me to-night, that goes against this candid remark, you had +better let it alone.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. +Bounderby took particular pains to harden himself at all +points. It was his amiable nature.</p> +<p>‘My dear Bounderby,’ Mr. Gradgrind began in +reply.</p> +<p>‘Now, you’ll excuse me,’ said Bounderby, +‘but I don’t want to be too dear. That, to +start with. When I begin to be dear to a man, I generally +find that his intention is to come over me. I am not +speaking to you politely; but, as you are aware, I am <i>not</i> +polite. If you like politeness, you know where to get +it. You have your gentleman-friends, you know, and +they’ll serve you with as much of the article as you +want. I don’t keep it myself.’</p> +<p>‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we are +all liable to mistakes—’</p> +<p>‘I thought you couldn’t make ’em,’ +interrupted Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all +liable to mistakes and I should feel sensible of your delicacy, +and grateful for it, if you would spare me these references to +Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our conversation +with your intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in +connecting him with mine.’</p> +<p>‘I never mentioned his name!’ said Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Well, well!’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a +patient, even a submissive, air. And he sat for a little +while pondering. ‘Bounderby, I see reason to doubt +whether we have ever quite understood Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘Who do you mean by We?’</p> +<p>‘Let me say I, then,’ he returned, in answer to +the coarsely blurted question; ‘I doubt whether I have +understood Louisa. I doubt whether I have been quite right +in the manner of her education.’</p> +<p>‘There you hit it,’ returned Bounderby. +‘There I agree with you. You have found it out at +last, have you? Education! I’ll tell you what +education is—To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and +put upon the shortest allowance of everything except blows. +That’s what <i>I</i> call education.’</p> +<p>‘I think your good sense will perceive,’ Mr. +Gradgrind remonstrated in all humility, ‘that whatever the +merits of such a system may be, it would be difficult of general +application to girls.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t see it at all, sir,’ returned the +obstinate Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘Well,’ sighed Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we will not +enter into the question. I assure you I have no desire to +be controversial. I seek to repair what is amiss, if I +possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good spirit, +Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t understand you, yet,’ said +Bounderby, with determined obstinacy, ‘and therefore I +won’t make any promises.’</p> +<p>‘In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,’ +Mr. Gradgrind proceeded, in the same depressed and propitiatory +manner, ‘I appear to myself to have become better informed +as to Louisa’s character, than in previous years. The +enlightenment has been painfully forced upon me, and the +discovery is not mine. I think there are—Bounderby, +you will be surprised to hear me say this—I think there are +qualities in Louisa, which—which have been harshly +neglected, and—and a little perverted. And—and +I would suggest to you, that—that if you would kindly meet +me in a timely endeavour to leave her to her better nature for a +while—and to encourage it to develop itself by tenderness +and consideration—it—it would be the better for the +happiness of all of us. Louisa,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +shading his face with his hand, ‘has always been my +favourite child.’</p> +<p>The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an +extent on hearing these words, that he seemed to be, and probably +was, on the brink of a fit. With his very ears a bright +purple shot with crimson, he pent up his indignation, however, +and said:</p> +<p>‘You’d like to keep her here for a +time?’</p> +<p>‘I—I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, +that you should allow Louisa to remain here on a visit, and be +attended by Sissy (I mean of course Cecilia Jupe), who +understands her, and in whom she trusts.’</p> +<p>‘I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,’ said +Bounderby, standing up with his hands in his pockets, ‘that +you are of opinion that there’s what people call some +incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and myself.’</p> +<p>‘I fear there is at present a general incompatibility +between Louisa, and—and—and almost all the relations +in which I have placed her,’ was her father’s +sorrowful reply.</p> +<p>‘Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,’ said +Bounderby the flushed, confronting him with his legs wide apart, +his hands deeper in his pockets, and his hair like a hayfield +wherein his windy anger was boisterous. ‘You have +said your say; I am going to say mine. I am a Coketown +man. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. I know the +bricks of this town, and I know the works of this town, and I +know the chimneys of this town, and I know the smoke of this +town, and I know the Hands of this town. I know ’em +all pretty well. They’re real. When a man tells +me anything about imaginative qualities, I always tell that man, +whoever he is, that I know what he means. He means turtle +soup and venison, with a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set +up with a coach and six. That’s what your daughter +wants. Since you are of opinion that she ought to have what +she wants, I recommend you to provide it for her. Because, +Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.’</p> +<p>‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I hoped, +after my entreaty, you would have taken a different +tone.’</p> +<p>‘Just wait a bit,’ retorted Bounderby; ‘you +have said your say, I believe. I heard you out; hear me +out, if you please. Don’t make yourself a spectacle +of unfairness as well as inconsistency, because, although I am +sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present position, I +should be doubly sorry to see him brought so low as that. +Now, there’s an incompatibility of some sort or another, I +am given to understand by you, between your daughter and +me. I’ll give <i>you</i> to understand, in reply to +that, that there unquestionably is an incompatibility of the +first magnitude—to be summed up in this—that your +daughter don’t properly know her husband’s merits, +and is not impressed with such a sense as would become her, by +George! of the honour of his alliance. That’s plain +speaking, I hope.’</p> +<p>‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘this is +unreasonable.’</p> +<p>‘Is it?’ said Bounderby. ‘I am glad to +hear you say so. Because when Tom Gradgrind, with his new +lights, tells me that what I say is unreasonable, I am convinced +at once it must be devilish sensible. With your permission +I am going on. You know my origin; and you know that for a +good many years of my life I didn’t want a shoeing-horn, in +consequence of not having a shoe. Yet you may believe or +not, as you think proper, that there are ladies—born +ladies—belonging to families—Families!—who next +to worship the ground I walk on.’</p> +<p>He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law’s +head.</p> +<p>‘Whereas your daughter,’ proceeded Bounderby, +‘is far from being a born lady. That you know, +yourself. Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff about +such things, for you are very well aware I don’t; but that +such is the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can’t change +it. Why do I say this?’</p> +<p>‘Not, I fear,’ observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low +voice, ‘to spare me.’</p> +<p>‘Hear me out,’ said Bounderby, ‘and refrain +from cutting in till your turn comes round. I say this, +because highly connected females have been astonished to see the +way in which your daughter has conducted herself, and to witness +her insensibility. They have wondered how I have suffered +it. And I wonder myself now, and I won’t suffer +it.’</p> +<p>‘Bounderby,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, +‘the less we say to-night the better, I think.’</p> +<p>‘On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say +to-night, the better, I think. That is,’ the +consideration checked him, ‘till I have said all I mean to +say, and then I don’t care how soon we stop. I come +to a question that may shorten the business. What do you +mean by the proposal you made just now?’</p> +<p>‘What do I mean, Bounderby?’</p> +<p>‘By your visiting proposition,’ said Bounderby, +with an inflexible jerk of the hayfield.</p> +<p>‘I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a +friendly manner, for allowing Louisa a period of repose and +reflection here, which may tend to a gradual alteration for the +better in many respects.’</p> +<p>‘To a softening down of your ideas of the +incompatibility?’ said Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘If you put it in those terms.’</p> +<p>‘What made you think of this?’ said Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been +understood. Is it asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so +far her elder, should aid in trying to set her right? You +have accepted a great charge of her; for better for worse, +for—’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his +own words to Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short +with an angry start.</p> +<p>‘Come!’ said he, ‘I don’t want to be +told about that. I know what I took her for, as well as you +do. Never you mind what I took her for; that’s my +look out.’</p> +<p>‘I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may +all be more or less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and +that some yielding on your part, remembering the trust you have +accepted, may not only be an act of true kindness, but perhaps a +debt incurred towards Louisa.’</p> +<p>‘I think differently,’ blustered Bounderby. +‘I am going to finish this business according to my own +opinions. Now, I don’t want to make a quarrel of it +with you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the truth, I +don’t think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel +on such a subject. As to your gentleman-friend, he may take +himself off, wherever he likes best. If he falls in my way, +I shall tell him my mind; if he don’t fall in my way, I +shan’t, for it won’t be worth my while to do +it. As to your daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and +might have done better by leaving Loo Gradgrind, if she +don’t come home to-morrow, by twelve o’clock at noon, +I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I shall +send her wearing apparel and so forth over here, and you’ll +take charge of her for the future. What I shall say to +people in general, of the incompatibility that led to my so +laying down the law, will be this. I am Josiah Bounderby, +and I had my bringing-up; she’s the daughter of Tom +Gradgrind, and she had her bringing-up; and the two horses +wouldn’t pull together. I am pretty well known to be +rather an uncommon man, I believe; and most people will +understand fast enough that it must be a woman rather out of the +common, also, who, in the long run, would come up to my +mark.’</p> +<p>‘Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, +Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘before you commit +yourself to such a decision.’</p> +<p>‘I always come to a decision,’ said Bounderby, +tossing his hat on: ‘and whatever I do, I do at once. +I should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind’s addressing such a +remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he knows of +him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did, after +his making himself a party to sentimental humbug. I have +given you my decision, and I have got no more to say. Good +night!’</p> +<p>So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed. At +five minutes past twelve o’clock next day, he directed Mrs. +Bounderby’s property to be carefully packed up and sent to +Tom Gradgrind’s; advertised his country retreat for sale by +private contract; and resumed a bachelor life.</p> +<h3><a id="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="GutSmall">LOST</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> robbery at the Bank had not +languished before, and did not cease to occupy a front place in +the attention of the principal of that establishment now. +In boastful proof of his promptitude and activity, as a +remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more +admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the mud instead of the +sea, he liked to show how little his domestic affairs abated his +business ardour. Consequently, in the first few weeks of +his resumed bachelorhood, he even advanced upon his usual display +of bustle, and every day made such a rout in renewing his +investigations into the robbery, that the officers who had it in +hand almost wished it had never been committed.</p> +<p>They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although they +had been so quiet since the first outbreak of the matter, that +most people really did suppose it to have been abandoned as +hopeless, nothing new occurred. No implicated man or woman +took untimely courage, or made a self-betraying step. More +remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool could not be heard of, and the +mysterious old woman remained a mystery.</p> +<p>Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs +of stirring beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s +investigations was, that he resolved to hazard a bold +burst. He drew up a placard, offering Twenty Pounds reward +for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, suspected of +complicity in the robbery of Coketown Bank on such a night; he +described the said Stephen Blackpool by dress, complexion, +estimated height, and manner, as minutely as he could; he recited +how he had left the town, and in what direction he had been last +seen going; he had the whole printed in great black letters on a +staring broadsheet; and he caused the walls to be posted with it +in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon the sight of +the whole population at one blow.</p> +<p>The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that morning +to disperse the groups of workers who stood in the tardy +daybreak, collected round the placards, devouring them with eager +eyes. Not the least eager of the eyes assembled, were the +eyes of those who could not read. These people, as they +listened to the friendly voice that read aloud—there was +always some such ready to help them—stared at the +characters which meant so much with a vague awe and respect that +would have been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance +could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil. +Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the matter of these +placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling +wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the Hands cleared out +again into the streets, there were still as many readers as +before.</p> +<p>Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too +that night; and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the +printer, and had brought it in his pocket. Oh, my friends +and fellow-countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown, +oh, my fellow-brothers and fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and +fellow-men, what a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded +what he called ‘that damning document,’ and held it +up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man +community! ‘Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a +traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon +the holy scroll of Justice and of Union, is appropriately +capable! Oh, my prostrate friends, with the galling yoke of +tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism treading +down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which +right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your +bellies all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the +garden—oh, my brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my +sisters too, what do you say, <i>now</i>, of Stephen Blackpool, +with a slight stoop in his shoulders and about five foot seven in +height, as set forth in this degrading and disgusting document, +this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable +advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you +crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the +God-like race that happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, +my compatriots, happily cast him out and sent him forth! +For you remember how he stood here before you on this platform; +you remember how, face to face and foot to foot, I pursued him +through all his intricate windings; you remember how he sneaked +and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with not an +inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst +us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and +for the avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch +and scar! And now, my friends—my labouring friends, +for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma—my friends whose +hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty but +independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my +friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to +himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands +before us in all his native deformity, a What? A +thief! A plunderer! A proscribed fugitive, with a +price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble +character of the Coketown operative! Therefore, my band of +brothers in a sacred bond, to which your children and your +children’s children yet unborn have set their infant hands +and seals, I propose to you on the part of the United Aggregate +Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous for your +benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool, +weaver, referred to in this placard, having been already solemnly +disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free +from the shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be +reproached with his dishonest actions!’</p> +<p>Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious +sort. A few stern voices called out ‘No!’ and a +score or two hailed, with assenting cries of ‘Hear, +hear!’ the caution from one man, ‘Slackbridge, +y’or over hetter in’t; y’or a goen too +fast!’ But these were pigmies against an army; the +general assemblage subscribed to the gospel according to +Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat +demonstratively panting at them.</p> +<p>These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly +to their homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa +some minutes before, returned.</p> +<p>‘Who is it?’ asked Louisa.</p> +<p>‘It is Mr. Bounderby,’ said Sissy, timid of the +name, ‘and your brother Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says +her name is Rachael, and that you know her.’</p> +<p>‘What do they want, Sissy dear?’</p> +<p>‘They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, +and seems angry.’</p> +<p>‘Father,’ said Louisa, for he was present, +‘I cannot refuse to see them, for a reason that will +explain itself. Shall they come in here?’</p> +<p>As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring +them. She reappeared with them directly. Tom was +last; and remained standing in the obscurest part of the room, +near the door.</p> +<p>‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said her husband, entering with +a cool nod, ‘I don’t disturb you, I hope. This +is an unseasonable hour, but here is a young woman who has been +making statements which render my visit necessary. Tom +Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for some obstinate +reason or other to say anything at all about those statements, +good or bad, I am obliged to confront her with your +daughter.’</p> +<p>‘You have seen me once before, young lady,’ said +Rachael, standing in front of Louisa.</p> +<p>Tom coughed.</p> +<p>‘You have seen me, young lady,’ repeated Rachael, +as she did not answer, ‘once before.’</p> +<p>Tom coughed again.</p> +<p>‘I have.’</p> +<p>Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, +‘Will you make it known, young lady, where, and who was +there?’</p> +<p>‘I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on +the night of his discharge from his work, and I saw you +there. He was there too; and an old woman who did not +speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a dark +corner. My brother was with me.’</p> +<p>‘Why couldn’t you say so, young Tom?’ +demanded Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘I promised my sister I wouldn’t.’ +Which Louisa hastily confirmed. ‘And besides,’ +said the whelp bitterly, ‘she tells her own story so +precious well—and so full—that what business had I to +take it out of her mouth!’</p> +<p>‘Say, young lady, if you please,’ pursued Rachael, +‘why, in an evil hour, you ever came to Stephen’s +that night.’</p> +<p>‘I felt compassion for him,’ said Louisa, her +colour deepening, ‘and I wished to know what he was going +to do, and wished to offer him assistance.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bounderby. +‘Much flattered and obliged.’</p> +<p>‘Did you offer him,’ asked Rachael, ‘a +bank-note?’</p> +<p>‘Yes; but he refused it, and would only take two pounds +in gold.’</p> +<p>Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again.</p> +<p>‘Oh, certainly!’ said Bounderby. ‘If +you put the question whether your ridiculous and improbable +account was true or not, I am bound to say it’s +confirmed.’</p> +<p>‘Young lady,’ said Rachael, ‘Stephen +Blackpool is now named as a thief in public print all over this +town, and where else! There have been a meeting to-night +where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way. +Stephen! The honestest lad, the truest lad, the +best!’ Her indignation failed her, and she broke off +sobbing.</p> +<p>‘I am very, very sorry,’ said Louisa.</p> +<p>‘Oh, young lady, young lady,’ returned Rachael, +‘I hope you may be, but I don’t know! I +can’t say what you may ha’ done! The like of +you don’t know us, don’t care for us, don’t +belong to us. I am not sure why you may ha’ come that +night. I can’t tell but what you may ha’ come +wi’ some aim of your own, not mindin to what trouble you +brought such as the poor lad. I said then, Bless you for +coming; and I said it of my heart, you seemed to take so +pitifully to him; but I don’t know now, I don’t +know!’</p> +<p>Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she +was so faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted.</p> +<p>‘And when I think,’ said Rachael through her sobs, +‘that the poor lad was so grateful, thinkin you so good to +him—when I mind that he put his hand over his hard-worken +face to hide the tears that you brought up there—Oh, I hope +you may be sorry, and ha’ no bad cause to be it; but I +don’t know, I don’t know!’</p> +<p>‘You’re a pretty article,’ growled the +whelp, moving uneasily in his dark corner, ‘to come here +with these precious imputations! You ought to be bundled +out for not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would be by +rights.’</p> +<p>She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only +sound that was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke.</p> +<p>‘Come!’ said he, ‘you know what you have +engaged to do. You had better give your mind to that; not +this.’</p> +<p>‘’Deed, I am loath,’ returned Rachael, +drying her eyes, ‘that any here should see me like this; +but I won’t be seen so again. Young lady, when I had +read what’s put in print of Stephen—and what has just +as much truth in it as if it had been put in print of you—I +went straight to the Bank to say I knew where Stephen was, and to +give a sure and certain promise that he should be here in two +days. I couldn’t meet wi’ Mr. Bounderby then, +and your brother sent me away, and I tried to find you, but you +was not to be found, and I went back to work. Soon as I +come out of the Mill to-night, I hastened to hear what was said +of Stephen—for I know wi’ pride he will come back to +shame it!—and then I went again to seek Mr. Bounderby, and +I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and he believed no +word I said, and brought me here.’</p> +<p>‘So far, that’s true enough,’ assented Mr. +Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on. +‘But I have known you people before to-day, you’ll +observe, and I know you never die for want of talking. Now, +I recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, as +doing. You have undertaken to do something; all I remark +upon that at present is, do it!’</p> +<p>‘I have written to Stephen by the post that went out +this afternoon, as I have written to him once before sin’ +he went away,’ said Rachael; ‘and he will be here, at +furthest, in two days.’</p> +<p>‘Then, I’ll tell you something. You are not +aware perhaps,’ retorted Mr. Bounderby, ‘that you +yourself have been looked after now and then, not being +considered quite free from suspicion in this business, on account +of most people being judged according to the company they +keep. The post-office hasn’t been forgotten +either. What I’ll tell you is, that no letter to +Stephen Blackpool has ever got into it. Therefore, what has +become of yours, I leave you to guess. Perhaps you’re +mistaken, and never wrote any.’</p> +<p>‘He hadn’t been gone from here, young lady,’ +said Rachael, turning appealingly to Louisa, ‘as much as a +week, when he sent me the only letter I have had from him, saying +that he was forced to seek work in another name.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, by George!’ cried Bounderby, shaking his +head, with a whistle, ‘he changes his name, does he! +That’s rather unlucky, too, for such an immaculate +chap. It’s considered a little suspicious in Courts +of Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many +names.’</p> +<p>‘What,’ said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes +again, ‘what, young lady, in the name of Mercy, was left +the poor lad to do! The masters against him on one hand, +the men against him on the other, he only wantin to work hard in +peace, and do what he felt right. Can a man have no soul of +his own, no mind of his own? Must he go wrong all through +wi’ this side, or must he go wrong all through wi’ +that, or else be hunted like a hare?’</p> +<p>‘Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,’ +returned Louisa; ‘and I hope that he will clear +himself.’</p> +<p>‘You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is +sure!’</p> +<p>‘All the surer, I suppose,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘for your refusing to tell where he is? +Eh?’</p> +<p>‘He shall not, through any act of mine, come back +wi’ the unmerited reproach of being brought back. He +shall come back of his own accord to clear himself, and put all +those that have injured his good character, and he not here for +its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been done +against him,’ said Rachael, throwing off all distrust as a +rock throws off the sea, ‘and he will be here, at furthest, +in two days.’</p> +<p>‘Notwithstanding which,’ added Mr. Bounderby, +‘if he can be laid hold of any sooner, he shall have an +earlier opportunity of clearing himself. As to you, I have +nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out to be +true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, +and there’s an end of it. I wish you good night +all! I must be off to look a little further into +this.’</p> +<p>Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved +with him, kept close to him, and went away with him. The +only parting salutation of which he delivered himself was a sulky +‘Good night, father!’ With a brief speech, and +a scowl at his sister, he left the house.</p> +<p>Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been +sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly +said:</p> +<p>‘Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you +know me better.’</p> +<p>‘It goes against me,’ Rachael answered, in a +gentler manner, ‘to mistrust any one; but when I am so +mistrusted—when we all are—I cannot keep such things +quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you +an injury. I don’t think what I said now. Yet I +might come to think it again, wi’ the poor lad so +wronged.’</p> +<p>‘Did you tell him in your letter,’ inquired Sissy, +‘that suspicion seemed to have fallen upon him, because he +had been seen about the Bank at night? He would then know +what he would have to explain on coming back, and would be +ready.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, dear,’ she returned; ‘but I +can’t guess what can have ever taken him there. He +never used to go there. It was never in his way. His +way was the same as mine, and not near it.’</p> +<p>Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, +and whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there +were news of him.</p> +<p>‘I doubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if he can be here +till next day.’</p> +<p>‘Then I will come next night too,’ said Sissy.</p> +<p>When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind +lifted up his head, and said to his daughter:</p> +<p>‘Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen +this man. Do you believe him to be implicated?’</p> +<p>‘I think I have believed it, father, though with great +difficulty. I do not believe it now.’</p> +<p>‘That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe +it, from knowing him to be suspected. His appearance and +manner; are they so honest?’</p> +<p>‘Very honest.’</p> +<p>‘And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask +myself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, ‘does the real +culprit know of these accusations? Where is he? Who +is he?’</p> +<p>His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he +leaned upon his hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a +face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close +at his side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy’s at the +moment. Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her +finger on her lip.</p> +<p>Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that +Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night +again, when she came home with the same account, and added that +he had not been heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened +tone. From the moment of that interchange of looks, they +never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever +pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of +it.</p> +<p>The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, +and Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard +of. On the fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, +but considering her despatch to have miscarried, went up to the +Bank, and showed her letter from him with his address, at a +working colony, one of many, not upon the main road, sixty miles +away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole +town looked for Stephen to be brought in next day.</p> +<p>During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. +Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in all the +proceedings. He was greatly excited, horribly fevered, bit +his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard rattling voice, and +with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour when +the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station; +offering to wager that he had made off before the <a id="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>arrival of +those who were sent in quest of him, and that he would not +appear.</p> +<p>The whelp was right. The messengers returned +alone. Rachael’s letter had gone, Rachael’s +letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had decamped +in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only +doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, +believing that he really would come back, or warning him to +fly. On this point opinion was divided.</p> +<p>Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The +wretched whelp plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow +defiant. ‘<i>Was</i> the suspected fellow the +thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the man, +and why did he not come back?’</p> +<p>Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the +dead of night the echoes of his own words, which had rolled +Heaven knows how far away in the daytime, came back instead, and +abided by him until morning.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="GutSmall">FOUND</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Day</span> and night again, day and night +again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and +why did he not come back?</p> +<p>Every night, Sissy went to Rachael’s lodging, and sat +with her in her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as +such people must toil, whatever their anxieties. The +smoke-serpents were indifferent who was lost or found, who turned +out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact +men, abated nothing of their set routine, whatever +happened. Day and night again, day and night again. +The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool’s +disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as +monotonous a wonder as any piece of machinery in Coketown.</p> +<p>‘I misdoubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if there is as +many as twenty left in all this place, who have any trust in the +poor dear lad now.’</p> +<p>She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only +by the lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when +it was already dark, to await her return from work; and they had +since sat at the window where Rachael had found her, wanting no +brighter light to shine on their sorrowful talk.</p> +<p>‘If it hadn’t been mercifully brought about, that +I was to have you to speak to,’ pursued Rachael, +‘times are, when I think my mind would not have kept +right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you +believe that though appearances may rise against him, he will be +proved clear?’</p> +<p>‘I do believe so,’ returned Sissy, ‘with my +whole heart. I feel so certain, Rachael, that the +confidence you hold in yours against all discouragement, is not +like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him than if I had +known him through as many years of trial as you have.’</p> +<p>‘And I, my dear,’ said Rachel, with a tremble in +her voice, ‘have known him through them all, to be, +according to his quiet ways, so faithful to everything honest and +good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and I was to live +to be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, God +knows my heart. I have never once left trusting Stephen +Blackpool!’</p> +<p>‘We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will +be freed from suspicion, sooner or later.’</p> +<p>‘The better I know it to be so believed there, my +dear,’ said Rachael, ‘and the kinder I feel it that +you come away from there, purposely to comfort me, and keep me +company, and be seen wi’ me when I am not yet free from all +suspicion myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever have +spoken those mistrusting words to the young lady. And yet +I—’</p> +<p>‘You don’t mistrust her now, Rachael?’</p> +<p>‘Now that you have brought us more together, no. +But I can’t at all times keep out of my +mind—’</p> +<p>Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, +that Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with +attention.</p> +<p>‘I can’t at all times keep out of my mind, +mistrustings of some one. I can’t think who +’tis, I can’t think how or why it may be done, but I +mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way. I +mistrust that by his coming back of his own accord, and showing +himself innocent before them all, some one would be confounded, +who—to prevent that—has stopped him, and put him out +of the way.’</p> +<p>‘That is a dreadful thought,’ said Sissy, turning +pale.</p> +<p>‘It <i>is</i> a dreadful thought to think he may be +murdered.’</p> +<p>Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet.</p> +<p>‘When it makes its way into my mind, dear,’ said +Rachael, ‘and it will come sometimes, though I do all I can +to keep it out, wi’ counting on to high numbers as I work, +and saying over and over again pieces that I knew when I were a +child—I fall into such a wild, hot hurry, that, however +tired I am, I want to walk fast, miles and miles. I must +get the better of this before bed-time. I’ll walk +home wi’ you.’</p> +<p>‘He might fall ill upon the journey back,’ said +Sissy, faintly offering a worn-out scrap of hope; ‘and in +such a case, there are many places on the road where he might +stop.’</p> +<p>‘But he is in none of them. He has been sought for +in all, and he’s not there.’</p> +<p>‘True,’ was Sissy’s reluctant admission.</p> +<p>‘He’d walk the journey in two days. If he +was footsore and couldn’t walk, I sent him, in the letter +he got, the money to ride, lest he should have none of his own to +spare.’</p> +<p>‘Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, +Rachael. Come into the air!’</p> +<p>Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael’s shawl upon her +shining black hair in the usual manner of her wearing it, and +they went out. The night being fine, little knots of Hands +were here and there lingering at street corners; but it was +supper-time with the greater part of them, and there were but few +people in the streets.</p> +<p>‘You’re not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand +is cooler.’</p> +<p>‘I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a +little fresh. ‘Times when I can’t, I turn weak +and confused.’</p> +<p>‘But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be +wanted at any time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is +Saturday. If no news comes to-morrow, let us walk in the +country on Sunday morning, and strengthen you for another +week. Will you go?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, dear.’</p> +<p>They were by this time in the street where Mr. +Bounderby’s house stood. The way to Sissy’s +destination led them past the door, and they were going straight +towards it. Some train had newly arrived in Coketown, which +had put a number of vehicles in motion, and scattered a +considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches were +rattling before them and behind them as they approached Mr. +Bounderby’s, and one of the latter drew up with such +briskness as they were in the act of passing the house, that they +looked round involuntarily. The bright gaslight over Mr. +Bounderby’s steps showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in +an ecstasy of excitement, struggling to open the door; Mrs. +Sparsit seeing them at the same moment, called to them to +stop.</p> +<p>‘It’s a coincidence,’ exclaimed Mrs. +Sparsit, as she was released by the coachman. +‘It’s a Providence! Come out, +ma’am!’ then said Mrs. Sparsit, to some one inside, +‘come out, or we’ll have you dragged out!’</p> +<p>Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman +descended. Whom Mrs. Sparsit incontinently collared.</p> +<p>‘Leave her alone, everybody!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, +with great energy. ‘Let nobody touch her. She +belongs to me. Come in, ma’am!’ then said Mrs. +Sparsit, reversing her former word of command. ‘Come +in, ma’am, or we’ll have you dragged in!’</p> +<p>The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an +ancient woman by the throat, and hauling her into a +dwelling-house, would have been under any circumstances, +sufficient temptation to all true English stragglers so blest as +to witness it, to force a way into that dwelling-house and see +the matter out. But when the phenomenon was enhanced by the +notoriety and mystery by this time associated all over the town +with the Bank robbery, it would have lured the stragglers in, +with an irresistible attraction, though the roof had been +expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the chance +witnesses on the ground, consisting of the busiest of the +neighbours to the number of some five-and-twenty, closed in after +Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in after Mrs. Sparsit and her +prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption into Mr. +Bounderby’s dining-room, where the people behind lost not a +moment’s time in mounting on the chairs, to get the better +of the people in front.</p> +<p>‘Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!’ cried Mrs. +Sparsit. ‘Rachael, young woman; you know who this +is?’</p> +<p>‘It’s Mrs. Pegler,’ said Rachael.</p> +<p>‘I should think it is!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, +exulting. ‘Fetch Mr. Bounderby. Stand away, +everybody!’ Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling herself +up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of +entreaty. ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit, aloud. ‘I have told you twenty times, coming +along, that I will <i>not</i> leave you till I have handed you +over to him myself.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and +the whelp, with whom he had been holding conference +up-stairs. Mr. Bounderby looked more astonished than +hospitable, at sight of this uninvited party in his +dining-room.</p> +<p>‘Why, what’s the matter now!’ said he. +‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ explained that worthy woman, ‘I trust +it is my good fortune to produce a person you have much desired +to find. Stimulated by my wish to relieve your mind, sir, +and connecting together such imperfect clues to the part of the +country in which that person might be supposed to reside, as have +been afforded by the young woman, Rachael, fortunately now +present to identify, I have had the happiness to succeed, and to +bring that person with me—I need not say most unwillingly +on her part. It has not been, sir, without some trouble +that I have effected this; but trouble in your service is to me a +pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold a real +gratification.’</p> +<p>Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby’s visage +exhibited an extraordinary combination of all possible colours +and expressions of discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed +to his view.</p> +<p>‘Why, what do you mean by this?’ was his highly +unexpected demand, in great warmth. ‘I ask you, what +do you mean by this, Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?’</p> +<p>‘Sir!’ exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly.</p> +<p>‘Why don’t you mind your own business, +ma’am?’ roared Bounderby. ‘How dare you +go and poke your officious nose into my family +affairs?’</p> +<p>This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. +Sparsit. She sat down stiffly in a chair, as if she were +frozen; and with a fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated +her mittens against one another, as if they were frozen too.</p> +<p>‘My dear Josiah!’ cried Mrs. Pegler, +trembling. ‘My darling boy! I am not to +blame. It’s not my fault, Josiah. I told this +lady over and over again, that I knew she was doing what would +not be agreeable to you, but she would do it.’</p> +<p>‘What did you let her bring you for? +Couldn’t you knock her cap off, or her tooth out, or +scratch her, or do something or other to her?’ asked +Bounderby.</p> +<p>‘My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted +her, I should be brought by constables, and it was better to come +quietly than make that stir in such a’—Mrs. Pegler +glanced timidly but proudly round the walls—‘such a +fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it is not my +fault! My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always +lived quiet, and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never +broken the condition once. I have never said I was your +mother. I have admired you at a distance; and if I have +come to town sometimes, with long times between, to take a proud +peep at you, I have done it unbeknown, my love, and gone away +again.’</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in +impatient mortification up and down at the side of the long +dining-table, while the spectators greedily took in every +syllable of Mrs. Pegler’s appeal, and at each succeeding +syllable became more and more round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby +still walking up and down when Mrs. Pegler had done, Mr. +Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady:</p> +<p>‘I am surprised, madam,’ he observed with +severity, ‘that in your old age you have the face to claim +Mr. Bounderby for your son, after your unnatural and inhuman +treatment of him.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Me</i> unnatural!’ cried poor old Mrs. +Pegler. ‘<i>Me</i> inhuman! To my dear +boy?’</p> +<p>‘Dear!’ repeated Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Yes; +dear in his self-made prosperity, madam, I dare say. Not +very dear, however, when you deserted him in his infancy, and +left him to the brutality of a drunken grandmother.’</p> +<p>‘<i>I</i> deserted my Josiah!’ cried Mrs. Pegler, +clasping her hands. ‘Now, Lord forgive you, sir, for +your wicked imaginations, and for your scandal against the memory +of my poor mother, who died in my arms before Josiah was +born. May you repent of it, sir, and live to know +better!’</p> +<p>She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, +shocked by the possibility which dawned upon him, said in a +gentler tone:</p> +<p>‘Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son +to—to be brought up in the gutter?’</p> +<p>‘Josiah in the gutter!’ exclaimed Mrs. +Pegler. ‘No such a thing, sir. Never! For +shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give <i>you</i> +to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of +parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never +thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might +write and cipher beautiful, and I’ve his books at home to +show it! Aye, have I!’ said Mrs. Pegler, with +indignant pride. ‘And my dear boy knows, and will +give <i>you</i> to know, sir, that after his beloved father died, +when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit, +as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it, to +help him out in life, and put him ’prentice. And a +steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, +and well he worked his own way forward to be rich and +thriving. And <i>I</i>’ll give you to know, +sir—for this my dear boy won’t—that though his +mother kept but a little village shop, he never forgot her, but +pensioned me on thirty pound a year—more than I want, for I +put by out of it—only making the condition that I was to +keep down in my own part, and make no boasts about him, and not +trouble him. And I never have, except with looking at him +once a year, when he has never knowed it. And it’s +right,’ said poor old Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate +championship, ‘that I <i>should</i> keep down in my own +part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do a many +unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep my +pride in my Josiah to myself, and I can love for love’s own +sake! And I am ashamed of you, sir,’ said Mrs. +Pegler, lastly, ‘for your slanders and suspicions. +And I never stood here before, nor never wanted to stand here +when my dear son said no. And I shouldn’t be here +now, if it hadn’t been for being brought here. And +for shame upon you, Oh, for shame, to accuse me of being a bad +mother to my son, with my son standing here to tell you so +different!’</p> +<p>The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a +murmur of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt +himself innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when +Mr. Bounderby, who had never ceased walking up and down, and had +every moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and +redder, stopped short.</p> +<p>‘I don’t exactly know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘how I come to be favoured with the attendance of the +present company, but I don’t inquire. When +they’re quite satisfied, perhaps they’ll be so good +as to disperse; whether they’re satisfied or not, perhaps +they’ll be so good as to disperse. I’m not +bound to deliver a lecture on my family affairs, I have not +undertaken to do it, and I’m not a going to do it. +Therefore those who expect any explanation whatever upon that +branch of the subject, will be disappointed—particularly +Tom Gradgrind, and he can’t know it too soon. In +reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a mistake made, +concerning my mother. If there hadn’t been +over-officiousness it wouldn’t have been made, and I hate +over-officiousness at all times, whether or no. Good +evening!’</p> +<p>Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding +the door open for the company to depart, there was a blustering +sheepishness upon him, at once extremely crestfallen and +superlatively absurd. Detected as the Bully of humility, +who had built his windy reputation upon lies, and in his +boastfulness had put the honest truth as far away from him as if +he had advanced the mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack +himself on to a pedigree, he cut a most ridiculous figure. +With the people filing off at the door he held, who he knew would +carry what had passed to the whole town, to be given to the four +winds, he could not have looked a Bully more shorn and forlorn, +if he had had his ears cropped. Even that unlucky female, +Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of exultation into the +Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that remarkable +man and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown.</p> +<p>Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her +son’s for that night, walked together to the gate of Stone +Lodge and there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them before +they had gone very far, and spoke with much interest of Stephen +Blackpool; for whom he thought this signal failure of the +suspicions against Mrs. Pegler was likely to work well.</p> +<p>As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late +occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to +feel that as long as Bounderby could make no discovery without +his knowledge, he was so far safe. He never visited his +sister, and had only seen her once since she went home: that is +to say on the night when he still stuck close to Bounderby, as +already related.</p> +<p>There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his +sister’s mind, to which she never gave utterance, which +surrounded the graceless and ungrateful boy with a dreadful +mystery. The same dark possibility had presented itself in +the same shapeless guise, this very day, to Sissy, when Rachael +spoke of some one who would be confounded by Stephen’s +return, having put him out of the way. Louisa had never +spoken of harbouring any suspicion of her brother in connexion +with the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence on the +subject, save in that one interchange of looks when the +unconscious father rested his gray head on his hand; but it was +understood between them, and they both knew it. This <a id="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 200</span>other fear +was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a ghostly +shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far +less of its being near the other.</p> +<p>And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, +throve with him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, +let him show himself. Why didn’t he?</p> +<p>Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen +Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not come +back?</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE STARLIGHT</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Sunday was a bright Sunday in +autumn, clear and cool, when early in the morning Sissy and +Rachael met, to walk in the country.</p> +<p>As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the +neighbourhood’s too—after the manner of those pious +persons who do penance for their own sins by putting other people +into sackcloth—it was customary for those who now and then +thirsted for a draught of pure air, which is not absolutely the +most wicked among the vanities of life, to get a few miles away +by the railroad, and then begin their walk, or their lounge in +the fields. Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the +smoke by the usual means, and were put down at a station about +midway between the town and Mr. Bounderby’s retreat.</p> +<p>Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with +heaps of coal, it was green elsewhere, and there were trees to +see, and there were larks singing (though it was Sunday), and +there were pleasant scents in the air, and all was over-arched by +a bright blue sky. In the distance one way, Coketown showed +as a black mist; in another distance hills began to rise; in a +third, there was a faint change in the light of the horizon where +it shone upon the far-off sea. Under their feet, the grass +was fresh; beautiful shadows of branches flickered upon it, and +speckled it; hedgerows were luxuriant; everything was at +peace. Engines at pits’ mouths, and lean old horses +that had worn the circle of their daily labour into the ground, +were alike quiet; wheels had ceased for a short space to turn; +and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve without the shocks +and noises of another time.</p> +<p>They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes, +sometimes getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it +dropped at a touch of the foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of +bricks and beams overgrown with grass, marking the site of +deserted works. They followed paths and tracks, however +slight. Mounds where the grass was rank and high, and where +brambles, dock-weed, and such-like vegetation, were confusedly +heaped together, they always avoided; for dismal stories were +told in that country of the old pits hidden beneath such +indications.</p> +<p>The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They had +seen no one, near or distant, for a long time; and the solitude +remained unbroken. ‘It is so still here, Rachael, and +the way is so untrodden, that I think we must be the first who +have been here all the summer.’</p> +<p>As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another of those +rotten fragments of fence upon the ground. She got up to +look at it. ‘And yet I don’t know. This +has not been broken very long. The wood is quite fresh +where it gave way. Here are footsteps too.—O +Rachael!’</p> +<p>She ran back, and caught her round the neck. Rachael had +already started up.</p> +<p>‘What is the matter?’</p> +<p>‘I don’t know. There is a hat lying in the +grass.’ They went forward together. Rachael +took it up, shaking from head to foot. She broke into a +passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen Blackpool was written +in his own hand on the inside.</p> +<p>‘O the poor lad, the poor lad! He has been made +away with. He is lying murdered here!’</p> +<p>‘Is there—has the hat any blood upon it?’ +Sissy faltered.</p> +<p>They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found +no mark of violence, inside or out. It had been lying there +some days, for rain and dew had stained it, and the mark of its +shape was on the grass where it had fallen. They looked +fearfully about them, without moving, but could see nothing +more. ‘Rachael,’ Sissy whispered, ‘I will +go on a little by myself.’</p> +<p>She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping +forward, when Rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that +resounded over the wide landscape. Before them, at their +very feet, was the brink of a black ragged chasm hidden by the +thick grass. They sprang back, and fell upon their knees, +each hiding her face upon the other’s neck.</p> +<p>‘O, my good Lord! He’s down there! +Down there!’ At first this, and her terrific screams, +were all that could be got from Rachael, by any tears, by any +prayers, by any representations, by any means. It was +impossible to hush her; and it was deadly necessary to hold her, +or she would have flung herself down the shaft.</p> +<p>‘Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of +Heaven, not these dreadful cries! Think of Stephen, think +of Stephen, think of Stephen!’</p> +<p>By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all +the agony of such a moment, Sissy at last brought her to be +silent, and to look at her with a tearless face of stone.</p> +<p>‘Rachael, Stephen may be living. You +wouldn’t leave him lying maimed at the bottom of this +dreadful place, a moment, if you could bring help to +him?’</p> +<p>‘No, no, no!’</p> +<p>‘Don’t stir from here, for his sake! Let me +go and listen.’</p> +<p>She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on +her hands and knees, and called to him as loud as she could +call. She listened, but no sound replied. She called +again and listened; still no answering sound. She did this, +twenty, thirty times. She took a little clod of earth from +the broken ground where he had stumbled, and threw it in. +She could not hear it fall.</p> +<p>The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few +minutes ago, almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she +rose and looked all round her, seeing no help. +‘Rachael, we must lose not a moment. We must go in +different directions, seeking aid. You shall go by the way +we have come, and I will go forward by the path. Tell any +one you see, and every one what has happened. Think of +Stephen, think of Stephen!’</p> +<p>She knew by Rachael’s face that she might trust her +now. And after standing for a moment to see her running, +wringing her hands as she ran, she turned and went upon her own +search; she stopped at the hedge to tie her shawl there as a +guide to the place, then threw her bonnet aside, and ran as she +had never run before.</p> +<p>Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven’s name! Don’t +stop for breath. Run, run! Quickening herself by +carrying such entreaties in her thoughts, she ran from field to +field, and lane to lane, and place to place, as she had never run +before; until she came to a shed by an engine-house, where two +men lay in the shade, asleep on straw.</p> +<p>First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and +breathless as she was, what had brought her there, were +difficulties; but they no sooner understood her than their +spirits were on fire like hers. One of the men was in a +drunken slumber, but on his comrade’s shouting to him that +a man had fallen down the Old Hell Shaft, he started out to a +pool of dirty water, put his head in it, and came back sober.</p> +<p>With these two men she ran to another half-a-mile further, and +with that one to another, while they ran elsewhere. Then a +horse was found; and she got another man to ride for life or +death to the railroad, and send a message to Louisa, which she +wrote and gave him. By this time a whole village was up: +and windlasses, ropes, poles, candles, lanterns, all things +necessary, were fast collecting and being brought into one place, +to be carried to the Old Hell Shaft.</p> +<p>It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man +lying in the grave where he had been buried alive. She +could not bear to remain away from it any longer—it was +like deserting him—and she hurried swiftly back, +accompanied by half-a-dozen labourers, including the drunken man +whom the news had sobered, and who was the best man of all. +When they came to the Old Hell Shaft, they found it as lonely as +she had left it. The men called and listened as she had +done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled how it had +happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements they +wanted should come up.</p> +<p>Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the +leaves, every whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for +she thought it was a cry at the bottom of the pit. But the +wind blew idly over it, and no sound arose to the surface, and +they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting. After they +had waited some time, straggling people who had heard of the +accident began to come up; then the real help of implements began +to arrive. In the midst of this, Rachael returned; and with +her party there was a surgeon, who brought some wine and +medicines. But, the expectation among the people that the +man would be found alive was very slight indeed.</p> +<p>There being now people enough present to impede the work, the +sobered man put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there +by the general consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell +Shaft, and appointed men to keep it. Besides such +volunteers as were accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachael were +at first permitted within this ring; but, later in the day, when +the message brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and +Louisa, and Mr. Bounderby, and the whelp, were also there.</p> +<p>The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had +first sat down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men +to descend securely was rigged with poles and ropes. +Difficulties had arisen in the construction of this machine, +simple as it was; requisites had been found wanting, and messages +had had to go and return. It was five o’clock in the +afternoon of the bright autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent +down to try the air, while three or four rough faces stood +crowded close together, attentively watching it: the man at the +windlass lowering as they were told. The candle was brought +up again, feebly burning, and then some water was cast in. +Then the bucket was hooked on; and the sobered man and another +got in with lights, giving the word ‘Lower away!’</p> +<p>As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass +creaked, there was not a breath among the one or two hundred men +and women looking on, that came as it was wont to come. The +signal was given and the windlass stopped, with abundant rope to +spare. Apparently so long an interval ensued with the men +at the windlass standing idle, that some women shrieked that +another accident had happened! But the surgeon who held the +watch, declared five minutes not to have elapsed yet, and sternly +admonished them to keep silence. He had not well done +speaking, when the windlass was reversed and worked again. +Practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as it would if +both workmen had been coming up, and that only one was +returning.</p> +<p>The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was +coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were +fastened on the pit. The sobered man was brought up and +leaped out briskly on the grass. There was an universal cry +of ‘Alive or dead?’ and then a deep, profound +hush.</p> +<p>When he said ‘Alive!’ a great shout arose and many +eyes had tears in them.</p> +<p>‘But he’s hurt very bad,’ he added, as soon +as he could make himself heard again. ‘Where’s +doctor? He’s hurt so very bad, sir, that we donno how +to get him up.’</p> +<p>They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the +surgeon, as he asked some questions, and shook his head on +receiving the replies. The sun was setting now; and the red +light in the evening sky touched every face there, and caused it +to be distinctly seen in all its rapt suspense.</p> +<p>The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, +and the pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other +small matters with him. Then the other man came up. +In the meantime, under the surgeon’s directions, some men +brought a hurdle, on which others made a thick bed of spare +clothes covered with loose straw, while he himself contrived some +bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs. As these +were made, they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last +come up, with instructions how to use them: and as he stood, +shown by the light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand +upon one of the poles, and sometimes glancing down the pit, and +sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was not the least +conspicuous figure in the scene. It was dark now, and +torches were kindled.</p> +<p>It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, +which was quickly repeated all over the circle, that the lost man +had fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was +half choked up, and that his fall had been further broken by some +jagged earth at the side. He lay upon his back with one arm +doubled under him, and according to his own belief had hardly +stirred since he fell, except that he had moved his free hand to +a side pocket, in which he remembered to have some bread and meat +(of which he had swallowed crumbs), and had likewise scooped up a +little water in it now and then. He had come straight away +from his work, on being written to, and had walked the whole +journey; and was on his way to Mr. Bounderby’s country +house after dark, when he fell. He was crossing that +dangerous country at such a dangerous time, because he was +innocent of what was laid to his charge, and couldn’t rest +from coming the nearest way to deliver himself up. The Old +Hell Shaft, the pitman said, with a curse upon it, was worthy of +its bad name to the last; for though Stephen could speak now, he +believed it would soon be found to have mangled the life out of +him.</p> +<p>When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hurried +charges from his comrades and the surgeon after the windlass had +begun to lower him, disappeared into the pit. The rope went +out as before, the signal was made as before, and the windlass +stopped. No man removed his hand from it now. Every +one waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to the +work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal +was given, and all the ring leaned forward.</p> +<p>For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to its +utmost as it appeared, and the men turned heavily, and the +windlass complained. It was scarcely endurable to look at +the rope, and think of its giving way. But, ring after ring +was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, and the +connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket with the two +men holding on at the sides—a sight to make the head swim, +and oppress the heart—and tenderly supporting between them, +slung and tied within, the figure of a poor, crushed, human +creature.</p> +<p>A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept +aloud, as this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly +from its iron deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw. +At first, none but the surgeon went close to it. He did +what he could in its adjustment on the couch, but the best that +he could do was to cover it. That gently done, he called to +him Rachael and Sissy. And at that time the pale, worn, +patient face was seen looking up at the sky, with the broken +right hand lying bare on the outside of the covering garments, as +if waiting to be taken by another hand.</p> +<p>They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and +administered some drops of cordial and wine. Though he lay +quite motionless looking up at the sky, he smiled and said, +‘Rachael.’ She stooped down on the grass at his +side, and bent over him until her eyes were between his and the +sky, for he could not so much as turn them to look at her.</p> +<p>‘Rachael, my dear.’</p> +<p>She took his hand. He smiled again and said, +‘Don’t let ’t go.’</p> +<p>‘Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear +Stephen?’</p> +<p>‘I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ +been—dreadful, and dree, and <a id="page206"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 206</span>long, my dear—but ’tis +ower now. Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle! Fro’ first +to last, a muddle!’</p> +<p>The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the +word.</p> +<p>‘I ha’ fell into th’ pit, my dear, as have +cost wi’in the knowledge o’ old fok now livin, +hundreds and hundreds o’ men’s lives—fathers, +sons, brothers, dear to thousands an’ thousands, an’ +keeping ’em fro’ want and hunger. I ha’ +fell into a pit that ha’ been wi’ th’ Firedamp +crueller than battle. I ha’ read on ’t in the +public petition, as onny one may read, fro’ the men that +works in pits, in which they ha’ pray’n and +pray’n the lawmakers for Christ’s sake not to let +their work be murder to ’em, but to spare ’em for +th’ wives and children that they loves as well as gentlefok +loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi’out +need; when ’tis let alone, it kills wi’out +need. See how we die an’ no need, one way an’ +another—in a muddle—every day!’</p> +<p>He faintly said it, without any anger against any one. +Merely as the truth.</p> +<p>‘Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot +her. Thou’rt not like to forget her now, and me so +nigh her. Thou know’st—poor, patient, +suff’rin, dear—how thou didst work for her, +seet’n all day long in her little chair at thy winder, and +how she died, young and misshapen, awlung o’ sickly air as +had’n no need to be, an’ awlung o’ working +people’s miserable homes. A muddle! Aw a +muddle!’</p> +<p>Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with +his face turned up to the night sky.</p> +<p>‘If aw th’ things that tooches us, my dear, was +not so muddled, I should’n ha’ had’n need to +coom heer. If we was not in a muddle among ourseln, I +should’n ha’ been, by my own fellow weavers and +workin’ brothers, so mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had +ever know’d me right—if he’d ever know’d +me at aw—he would’n ha’ took’n offence +wi’ me. He would’n ha’ suspect’n +me. But look up yonder, Rachael! Look +aboove!’</p> +<p>Following his eyes, she saw that he was gazing at a star.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p206b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft" +title= +"Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft" +src="images/p206s.jpg"> +</a></p> +<p>‘It ha’ shined upon me,’ he said reverently, +‘in my pain and trouble down below. It ha’ +shined into my mind. I ha’ look’n at ’t +and thowt o’ thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have +cleared awa, above a bit, I hope. If soom ha’ been +wantin’ in unnerstan’in me better, I, too, ha’ +been wantin’ in unnerstan’in them better. When +I got thy letter, I easily believen that what the yoong ledy sen +and done to me, and what her brother sen and done to me, was one, +and that there were a wicked plot betwixt ’em. When I +fell, I were in anger wi’ her, an’ hurryin on +t’ be as onjust t’ her as oothers was t’ +me. But in our judgments, like as in our doins, we mun bear +and forbear. In my pain an’ trouble, lookin up +yonder,—wi’ it shinin on me—I ha’ seen +more clear, and ha’ made it my dyin prayer that aw +th’ world may on’y coom toogether more, an’ get +a better unnerstan’in o’ one another, than when I +were in ’t my own weak seln.’</p> +<p>Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the opposite +side to Rachael, so that he could see her.</p> +<p>‘You ha’ heard?’ he said, after a few +moments’ silence. ‘I ha’ not forgot you, +ledy.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, Stephen, I have heard you. And your prayer +is mine.’</p> +<p>‘You ha’ a father. Will yo tak’ a +message to him?’</p> +<p>‘He is here,’ said Louisa, with dread. +‘Shall I bring him to you?’</p> +<p>‘If yo please.’</p> +<p>Louisa returned with her father. Standing hand-in-hand, +they both looked down upon the solemn countenance.</p> +<p>‘Sir, yo will clear me an’ mak my name good +wi’ aw men. This I leave to yo.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind was troubled and asked how?</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ was the reply: ‘yor son will tell yo +how. Ask him. I mak no charges: I leave none ahint +me: not a single word. I ha’ seen an’ +spok’n wi’ yor son, one night. I ask no more +o’ yo than that yo clear me—an’ I trust to yo +to do ’t.’</p> +<p>The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon +being anxious for his removal, those who had torches or lanterns, +prepared to go in front of the litter. Before it was +raised, and while they were arranging how to go, he said to +Rachael, looking upward at the star:</p> +<p>‘Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin’ +on me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the star as +guided to Our Saviour’s home. I awmust think it be +the very star!’</p> +<p>They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that they +were about to take him in the direction whither the star seemed +to him to lead.</p> +<p>‘Rachael, beloved lass! Don’t let go my +hand. We may walk toogether t’night, my +dear!’</p> +<p>‘I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Stephen, +all the way.’</p> +<p>‘Bless thee! Will soombody be pleased to coover my +face!’</p> +<p>They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the +lanes, and over the wide landscape; Rachael always holding the +hand in hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful +silence. It was soon a funeral procession. The star +had shown him where to find the God of the poor; and through +humility, and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his +Redeemer’s rest.</p> +<h3><a id="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +208</span>CHAPTER VII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">WHELP-HUNTING</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> the ring formed round the +Old Hell Shaft was broken, one figure had disappeared from within +it. Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not stood near Louisa, +who held her father’s arm, but in a retired place by +themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to the couch, +Sissy, attentive to all that happened, slipped behind that wicked +shadow—a sight in the horror of his face, if there had been +eyes there for any sight but one—and whispered in his +ear. Without turning his head, he conferred with her a few +moments, and vanished. Thus the whelp had gone out of the +circle before the people moved.</p> +<p>When the father reached home, he sent a message to Mr. +Bounderby’s, desiring his son to come to him +directly. The reply was, that Mr. Bounderby having missed +him in the crowd, and seeing nothing of him since, had supposed +him to be at Stone Lodge.</p> +<p>‘I believe, father,’ said Louisa, ‘he will +not come back to town to-night.’ Mr. Gradgrind turned +away, and said no more.</p> +<p>In the morning, he went down to the Bank himself as soon as it +was opened, and seeing his son’s place empty (he had not +the courage to look in at first) went back along the street to +meet Mr. Bounderby on his way there. To whom he said that, +for reasons he would soon explain, but entreated not then to be +asked for, he had found it necessary to employ his son at a +distance for a little while. Also, that he was charged with +the duty of vindicating Stephen Blackpool’s memory, and +declaring the thief. Mr. Bounderby quite confounded, stood +stock-still in the street after his father-in-law had left him, +swelling like an immense soap-bubble, without its beauty.</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, and kept +it all that day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped at his door, +he said, without opening it, ‘Not now, my dears; in the +evening.’ On their return in the evening, he said, +‘I am not able yet—to-morrow.’ He ate +nothing all day, and had no candle after dark; and they heard him +walking to and fro late at night.</p> +<p>But, in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the usual +hour, and took his usual place at the table. Aged and bent +he looked, and quite bowed down; and yet he looked a wiser man, +and a better man, than in the days when in this life he wanted +nothing—but Facts. Before he left the room, he +appointed a time for them to come to him; and so, with his gray +head drooping, went away.</p> +<p>‘Dear father,’ said Louisa, when they kept their +appointment, ‘you have three young children left. +They will be different, I will be different yet, with +Heaven’s help.’</p> +<p>She gave her hand to Sissy, as if she meant with her help +too.</p> +<p>‘Your wretched brother,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. +‘Do you think he had planned this robbery, when he went +with you to the lodging?’</p> +<p>‘I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money +very much, and had spent a great deal.’</p> +<p>‘The poor man being about to leave the town, it came +into his evil brain to cast suspicion on him?’</p> +<p>‘I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat +there, father. For I asked him to go there with me. +The visit did not originate with him.’</p> +<p>‘He had some conversation with the poor man. Did +he take him aside?’</p> +<p>‘He took him out of the room. I asked him +afterwards, why he had done so, and he made a plausible excuse; +but since last night, father, and when I remember the +circumstances by its light, I am afraid I can imagine too truly +what passed between them.’</p> +<p>‘Let me know,’ said her father, ‘if your +thoughts present your guilty brother in the same dark view as +mine.’</p> +<p>‘I fear, father,’ hesitated Louisa, ‘that he +must have made some representation to Stephen +Blackpool—perhaps in my name, perhaps in his +own—which induced him to do in good faith and honesty, what +he had never done before, and to wait about the Bank those two or +three nights before he left the town.’</p> +<p>‘Too plain!’ returned the father. ‘Too +plain!’</p> +<p>He shaded his face, and remained silent for some +moments. Recovering himself, he said:</p> +<p>‘And now, how is he to be found? How is he to be +saved from justice? In the few hours that I can possibly +allow to elapse before I publish the truth, how is he to be found +by us, and only by us? Ten thousand pounds could not effect +it.’</p> +<p>‘Sissy has effected it, father.’</p> +<p>He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy in +his house, and said in a tone of softened gratitude and grateful +kindness, ‘It is always you, my child!’</p> +<p>‘We had our fears,’ Sissy explained, glancing at +Louisa, ‘before yesterday; and when I saw you brought to +the side of the litter last night, and heard what passed (being +close to Rachael all the time), I went to him when no one saw, +and said to him, “Don’t look at me. See where +your father is. Escape at once, for his sake and your +own!” He was in a tremble before I whispered to him, +and he started and trembled more then, and said, “Where can +I go? I have very little money, and I don’t know who +will hide me!” I thought of father’s old +circus. I have not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at this +time of year, and I read of him in a paper only the other +day. I told him to hurry there, and tell his name, and ask +Mr. Sleary to hide him till I came. “I’ll get +to him before the morning,” he said. And I saw him +shrink away among the people.’</p> +<p>‘Thank Heaven!’ exclaimed his father. +‘He may be got abroad yet.’</p> +<p>It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy had +directed him was within three hours’ journey of Liverpool, +whence he could be swiftly dispatched to any part of the +world. But, caution being necessary in communicating with +him—for there was a greater danger every moment of his +being suspected now, and nobody could be sure at heart but that +Mr. Bounderby himself, in a bullying vein of public zeal, might +play a Roman part—it was consented that Sissy and Louisa +should repair to the place in question, by a circuitous course, +alone; and that the unhappy father, setting forth in an opposite +direction, should get round to the same bourne by another and +wider route. It was further agreed that he should not +present himself to Mr. Sleary, lest his intentions should be +mistrusted, or the intelligence of his arrival should cause his +son to take flight anew; but, that the communication should be +left to Sissy and Louisa to open; and that they should inform the +cause of so much misery and disgrace, of his father’s being +at hand and of the purpose for which they had come. When +these arrangements had been well considered and were fully +understood by all three, it was time to begin to carry them into +execution. Early in the afternoon, Mr. Gradgrind walked +direct from his own house into the country, to be taken up on the +line by which he was to travel; and at night the remaining two +set forth upon their different course, encouraged by not seeing +any face they knew.</p> +<p>The two travelled all night, except when they were left, for +odd numbers of minutes, at branch-places, up illimitable flights +of steps, or down wells—which was the only variety of those +branches—and, early in the morning, were turned out on a +swamp, a mile or two from the town they sought. From this +dismal spot they were rescued by a savage old postilion, who +happened to be up early, kicking a horse in a fly: and so were +smuggled into the town by all the back lanes where the pigs +lived: which, although not a magnificent or even savoury +approach, was, as is usual in such cases, the legitimate +highway.</p> +<p>The first thing they saw on entering the town was the skeleton +of Sleary’s Circus. The company had departed for +another town more than twenty miles off, and had opened there +last night. The connection between the two places was by a +hilly turnpike-road, and the travelling on that road was very +slow. Though they took but a hasty breakfast, and no rest +(which it would have been in vain to seek under such anxious +circumstances), it was noon before they began to find the bills +of Sleary’s Horse-riding on barns and walls, and one +o’clock when they stopped in the market-place.</p> +<p>A Grand Morning Performance by the Riders, commencing at that +very hour, was in course of announcement by the bellman as they +set their feet upon the stones of the street. Sissy +recommended that, to avoid making inquiries and attracting +attention in the town, they should present themselves to pay at +the door. If Mr. Sleary were taking the money, he would be +sure to know her, and would proceed with discretion. If he +were not, he would be sure to see them inside; and, knowing what +he had done with the fugitive, would proceed with discretion +still.</p> +<p>Therefore, they repaired, with fluttering hearts, to the +well-remembered booth. The flag with the inscription <span +class="smcap">Sleary’s Horse-riding</span> was there; and +the Gothic niche was there; but Mr. Sleary was not there. +Master Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received by +the wildest credulity as Cupid any more, had yielded to the +invincible force of circumstances (and his beard), and, in the +capacity of a man who made himself generally useful, presided on +this occasion over the exchequer—having also a drum in +reserve, on which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous +forces. In the extreme sharpness of his look out for base +coin, Mr. Kidderminster, as at present situated, never saw +anything but money; so Sissy passed him unrecognised, and they +went in.</p> +<p>The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse stencilled +with black spots, was twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as +it is the favourite recreation of that monarch to do. +Sissy, though well acquainted with his Royal line, had no +personal knowledge of the present Emperor, and his reign was +peaceful. Miss Josephine Sleary, in her celebrated graceful +Equestrian Tyrolean Flower Act, was then announced by a new clown +(who humorously said Cauliflower Act), and Mr. Sleary appeared, +leading her in.</p> +<p>Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the Clown with his long +whip-lash, and the Clown had only said, ‘If you do it +again, I’ll throw the horse at you!’ when Sissy was +recognised both by father and daughter. But they got +through the Act with great self-possession; and Mr. Sleary, +saving for the first instant, conveyed no more expression into +his locomotive eye than into his fixed one. The performance +seemed a little long to Sissy and Louisa, particularly when it +stopped to afford the Clown an opportunity of telling Mr. Sleary +(who said ‘Indeed, sir!’ to all his observations in +the calmest way, and with his eye on the house) about two legs +sitting on three legs looking at one leg, when in came four legs, +and laid hold of one leg, and up got two legs, caught hold of +three legs, and threw ’em at four legs, who ran away with +one leg. For, although an ingenious Allegory relating to a +butcher, a three-legged stool, a dog, and a leg of mutton, this +narrative consumed time; and they were in great suspense. +At last, however, little fair-haired Josephine made her curtsey +amid great applause; and the Clown, left alone in the ring, had +just warmed himself, and said, ‘Now <i>I</i>’ll have +a turn!’ when Sissy was touched on the shoulder, and +beckoned out.</p> +<p>She took Louisa with her; and they were received by Mr. Sleary +in a very little private apartment, with canvas sides, a grass +floor, and a wooden ceiling all aslant, on which the box company +stamped their approbation, as if they were coming through. +‘Thethilia,’ said Mr. Sleary, who had brandy and +water at hand, ‘it doth me good to thee you. You wath +alwayth a favourite with uth, and you’ve done uth credith +thinth the old timeth I’m thure. You mutht thee our +people, my dear, afore we thpeak of bithnith, or they’ll +break their hearth—ethpethially the women. +Here’th Jothphine hath been and got married to E. W. B. +Childerth, and thee hath got a boy, and though he’th only +three yearth old, he thtickth on to any pony you can bring +againtht him. He’th named The Little Wonder of +Thcolathtic Equitation; and if you don’t hear of that boy +at Athley’th, you’ll hear of him at Parith. And +you recollect Kidderminthter, that wath thought to be rather +thweet upon yourthelf? Well. He’th married +too. Married a widder. Old enough to be hith +mother. Thee wath Tightrope, thee wath, and now +thee’th nothing—on accounth of fat. +They’ve got two children, tho we’re thtrong in the +Fairy bithnith and the Nurthery dodge. If you wath to thee +our Children in the Wood, with their father and mother both a +dyin’ on a horthe—their uncle a retheiving of +’em ath hith wardth, upon a horthe—themthelvth both a +goin’ a black-berryin’ on a horthe—and the +Robinth a coming in to cover ’em with leavth, upon a +horthe—you’d thay it wath the completetht thing ath +ever you thet your eyeth on! And you remember Emma Gordon, +my dear, ath wath a’motht a mother to you? Of courthe +you do; I needn’t athk. Well! Emma, thee lotht +her huthband. He wath throw’d a heavy back-fall off a +Elephant in a thort of a Pagoda thing ath the Thultan of the +Indieth, and he never got the better of it; and thee married a +thecond time—married a Cheethemonger ath fell in love with +her from the front—and he’th a Overtheer and +makin’ a fortun.’</p> +<p>These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath now, +related with great heartiness, and with a wonderful kind of +innocence, considering what a bleary and brandy-and-watery old +veteran he was. Afterwards he brought in Josephine, and E. +W. B. Childers (rather deeply lined in the jaws by daylight), and +the Little Wonder of Scholastic Equitation, and in a word, all +the company. Amazing creatures they were in Louisa’s +eyes, so white and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so +demonstrative of leg; but it was very agreeable to see them +crowding about Sissy, and very natural in Sissy to be unable to +refrain from tears.</p> +<p>‘There! Now Thethilia hath kithd all the children, +and hugged all the women, and thaken handth all round with all +the men, clear, every one of you, and ring in the band for the +thecond part!’</p> +<p>As soon as they were gone, he continued in a low tone. +‘Now, Thethilia, I don’t athk to know any thecreth, +but I thuppothe I may conthider thith to be Mith +Thquire.’</p> +<p>‘This is his sister. Yes.’</p> +<p>‘And t’other on’th daughter. +That’h what I mean. Hope I thee you well, mith. +And I hope the Thquire’th well?’</p> +<p>‘My father will be here soon,’ said Louisa, +anxious to bring him to the point. ‘Is my brother +safe?’</p> +<p>‘Thafe and thound!’ he replied. ‘I +want you jutht to take a peep at the Ring, mith, through +here. Thethilia, you know the dodgeth; find a thpy-hole for +yourthelf.’</p> +<p>They each looked through a chink in the boards.</p> +<p>‘That’h Jack the Giant Killer—piethe of +comic infant bithnith,’ said Sleary. +‘There’th a property-houthe, you thee, for Jack to +hide in; there’th my Clown with a thauthepan-lid and a +thpit, for Jack’th thervant; there’th little Jack +himthelf in a thplendid thoot of armour; there’th two comic +black thervanth twithe ath big ath the houthe, to thtand by it +and to bring it in and clear it; and the Giant (a very +ecthpenthive bathket one), he an’t on yet. Now, do +you thee ’em all?’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ they both said.</p> +<p>‘Look at ’em again,’ said Sleary, +‘look at ’em well. You thee em all? Very +good. Now, mith;’ he put a form for them to sit on; +‘I have my opinionth, and the Thquire your father hath +hith. I don’t want to know what your brother’th +been up to; ith better for me not to know. All I thay ith, +the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by +the Thquire. Your brother ith one them black +thervanth.’</p> +<p>Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly of +satisfaction.</p> +<p>‘Ith a fact,’ said Sleary, ‘and even +knowin’ it, you couldn’t put your finger on +him. Let the Thquire come. I thall keep your brother +here after the performanth. I thant undreth him, nor yet +wath hith paint off. Let the Thquire come here after the +performanth, or come here yourthelf after the performanth, and +you thall find your brother, and have the whole plathe to talk to +him in. Never mind the lookth of him, ath long ath +he’th well hid.’</p> +<p>Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, detained +Mr. Sleary no longer then. She left her love for her +brother, with her eyes full of tears; and she and Sissy went away +until later in the afternoon.</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too +had encountered no one whom he knew; and was now sanguine with +Sleary’s assistance, of getting his disgraced son to +Liverpool in the night. As neither of the three could be +his companion without almost identifying him under any disguise, +he prepared a letter to a correspondent whom he could trust, +beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or +South America, or any distant part of the world to which he could +be the most speedily and privately dispatched.</p> +<p>This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be +quite vacated; not only by the audience, but by the company and +by the horses. After watching it a long time, they saw Mr. +Sleary bring out a chair and sit down by the side-door, smoking; +as if that were his signal that they might approach.</p> +<p>‘Your thervant, Thquire,’ was his cautious +salutation as they passed in. ‘If you want me +you’ll find me here. You muthn’t mind your thon +having a comic livery on.’</p> +<p>They all three went in; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on +the Clown’s performing chair in the middle of the +ring. On one of the back benches, remote in the subdued +light and the strangeness of the place, sat the villainous whelp, +sulky to the last, whom he had the misery to call his son.</p> +<p>In a preposterous coat, like a beadle’s, with cuffs and +flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent; in an immense +waistcoat, knee-breeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked hat; +with nothing fitting him, and everything of coarse material, +moth-eaten and full of holes; with seams in his black face, where +fear and heat had started through the greasy composition daubed +all over it; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously +shameful as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never +could by any other means have believed in, weighable and +measurable fact though it was. And one of his model +children had come to this!</p> +<p>At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in +remaining up there by himself. Yielding at length, if any +concession so sullenly made can be called yielding, to the +entreaties of Sissy—for Louisa he disowned +altogether—he came down, bench by bench, until he stood in +the sawdust, on the verge of the circle, as far as possible, +within its limits from where his father sat.</p> +<p>‘How was this done?’ asked the father.</p> +<p>‘How was what done?’ moodily answered the son.</p> +<p>‘This robbery,’ said the father, raising his voice +upon the word.</p> +<p>‘I forced the safe myself over night, and shut it up +ajar before I went away. I had had the key that was found, +made long before. I dropped it that morning, that it might +be supposed to have been used. I didn’t take the +money all at once. I pretended to put my balance away every +night, but I didn’t. Now you know all about +it.’</p> +<p>‘If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,’ said the +father, ‘it would have shocked me less than +this!’</p> +<p>‘I don’t see why,’ grumbled the son. +‘So many people are employed in situations of trust; so +many people, out of so many, will be dishonest. I have +heard you talk, a hundred times, of its being a law. How +can <i>I</i> help laws? You have comforted others with such +things, father. Comfort yourself!’</p> +<p>The father buried his face in his hands, and the son stood in +his disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw: his hands, with the +black partly worn away inside, looking like the hands of a +monkey. The evening was fast closing in; and from time to +time, he turned the whites of his eyes restlessly and impatiently +towards his father. They were the only parts of his face +that showed any life or expression, the pigment upon it was so +thick.</p> +<p>‘You must be got to Liverpool, and sent +abroad.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose I must. I can’t be more miserable +anywhere,’ whimpered the whelp, ‘than I have been +here, ever since I can remember. That’s one +thing.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and returned with Sleary, to +whom he submitted the question, How to get this deplorable object +away?</p> +<p>‘Why, I’ve been thinking of it, Thquire. +There’th not muth time to lothe, tho you muth thay yeth or +no. Ith over twenty mileth to the rail. +There’th a coath in half an hour, that goeth <i>to</i> the +rail, ‘purpothe to cath the mail train. That train +will take him right to Liverpool.’</p> +<p>‘But look at him,’ groaned Mr. Gradgrind. +‘Will any coach—’</p> +<p>‘I don’t mean that he thould go in the comic +livery,’ said Sleary. ‘Thay the word, and +I’ll make a Jothkin of him, out of the wardrobe, in five +minutes.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t understand,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘A Jothkin—a Carter. Make up your mind +quick, Thquire. There’ll be beer to feth. +I’ve never met with nothing but beer ath’ll ever +clean a comic blackamoor.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented; Mr. Sleary rapidly turned out +from a box, a smock frock, a felt hat, and other essentials; the +whelp rapidly changed clothes behind a screen of baize; Mr. +Sleary rapidly brought beer, and washed him white again.</p> +<p>‘Now,’ said Sleary, ‘come along to the +coath, and jump up behind; I’ll go with you there, and +they’ll thuppothe you one of my people. Thay farewell +to your family, and tharp’th the word.’ With +which he delicately retired.</p> +<p>‘Here is your letter,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. +‘All necessary means <a id="page216"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 216</span>will be provided for you. +Atone, by repentance and better conduct, for the shocking action +you have committed, and the dreadful consequences to which it has +led. Give me your hand, my poor boy, and may God forgive +you as I do!’</p> +<p>The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these words and +their pathetic tone. But, when Louisa opened her arms, he +repulsed her afresh.</p> +<p>‘Not you. I don’t want to have anything to +say to you!’</p> +<p>‘O Tom, Tom, do we end so, after all my love!’</p> +<p>‘After all your love!’ he returned, +obdurately. ‘Pretty love! Leaving old Bounderby +to himself, and packing my best friend Mr. Harthouse off, and +going home just when I was in the greatest danger. Pretty +love that! Coming out with every word about our having gone +to that place, when you saw the net was gathering round me. +Pretty love that! You have regularly given me up. You +never cared for me.’</p> +<p>‘Tharp’th the word!’ said Sleary, at the +door.</p> +<p>They all confusedly went out: Louisa crying to him that she +forgave him, and loved him still, and that he would one day be +sorry to have left her so, and glad to think of these her last +words, far away: when some one ran against them. Mr. +Gradgrind and Sissy, who were both before him while his sister +yet clung to his shoulder, stopped and recoiled.</p> +<p>For, there was Bitzer, out of breath, his thin lips parted, +his thin nostrils distended, his white eyelashes quivering, his +colourless face more colourless than ever, as if he ran himself +into a white heat, when other people ran themselves into a +glow. There he stood, panting and heaving, as if he had +never stopped since the night, now long ago, when he had run them +down before.</p> +<p>‘I’m sorry to interfere with your plans,’ +said Bitzer, shaking his head, ‘but I can’t allow +myself to be done by horse-riders. I must have young Mr. +Tom; he mustn’t be got away by horse-riders; here he is in +a smock frock, and I must have him!’</p> +<p>By the collar, too, it seemed. For, so he took +possession of him.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII<br> +<span class="GutSmall">PHILOSOPHICAL</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> went back into the booth, +Sleary shutting the door to keep intruders out. Bitzer, +still holding the paralysed culprit by the collar, stood in the +Ring, blinking at his old patron through the darkness of the +twilight.</p> +<p>‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and +miserably submissive to him, ‘have you a heart?’</p> +<p>‘The circulation, sir,’ returned Bitzer, smiling +at the oddity of the question, ‘couldn’t be carried +on without one. No man, sir, acquainted with the facts +established by Harvey relating to the circulation of the blood, +can doubt that I have a heart.’</p> +<p>‘Is it accessible,’ cried Mr. Gradgrind, ‘to +any compassionate influence?’</p> +<p>‘It is accessible to Reason, sir,’ returned the +excellent young man. ‘And to nothing else.’</p> +<p>They stood looking at each other; Mr. Gradgrind’s face +as white as the pursuer’s.</p> +<p>‘What motive—even what motive in reason—can +you have for preventing the escape of this wretched youth,’ +said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘and crushing his miserable +father? See his sister here. Pity us!’</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ returned Bitzer, in a very business-like +and logical manner, ‘since you ask me what motive I have in +reason, for taking young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, it is only +reasonable to let you know. I have suspected young Mr. Tom +of this bank-robbery from the first. I had had my eye upon +him before that time, for I knew his ways. I have kept my +observations to myself, but I have made them; and I have got +ample proofs against him now, besides his running away, and +besides his own confession, which I was just in time to +overhear. I had the pleasure of watching your house +yesterday morning, and following you here. I am going to +take young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him over +to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. +Bounderby will then promote me to young Mr. Tom’s +situation. And I wish to have his situation, sir, for it +will be a rise to me, and will do me good.’</p> +<p>‘If this is solely a question of self-interest with +you—’ Mr. Gradgrind began.</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,’ +returned Bitzer; ‘but I am sure you know that the whole +social system is a question of self-interest. What you must +always appeal to, is a person’s self-interest. +It’s your only hold. We are so constituted. I +was brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as +you are aware.’</p> +<p>‘What sum of money,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +‘will you set against your expected promotion?’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Bitzer, ‘for +hinting at the proposal; but I will not set any sum against +it. Knowing that your clear head would propose that +alternative, I have gone over the calculations in my mind; and I +find that to compound a felony, even on very high terms indeed, +would not be as safe and good for me as my improved prospects in +the Bank.’</p> +<p>‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his +hands as though he would have said, See how miserable I am! +‘Bitzer, I have but one chance left to soften you. +You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of the +pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any +degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, I +entreat and pray you to give him the benefit of that +remembrance.’</p> +<p>‘I really wonder, sir,’ rejoined the old pupil in +an argumentative manner, ‘to find you taking a position so +untenable. My schooling was paid for; it was a bargain; and +when I came away, the bargain ended.’</p> +<p>It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy +that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any +account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without +purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues +springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the +existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain +across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that +way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no +business there.</p> +<p>‘I don’t deny,’ added Bitzer, ‘that my +schooling was cheap. But that comes right, sir. I was +made in the cheapest market, and have to dispose of myself in the +dearest.’</p> +<p>He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and Sissy crying.</p> +<p>‘Pray don’t do that,’ said he, +‘it’s of no use doing that: it only worries. +You seem to think that I have some animosity against young Mr. +Tom; whereas I have none at all. I am only going, on the +reasonable grounds I have mentioned, to take him back to +Coketown. If he was to resist, I should set up the cry of +Stop thief! But, he won’t resist, you may depend upon +it.’</p> +<p>Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as +immovably jammed in his head as his fixed one, had listened to +these doctrines with profound attention, here stepped +forward.</p> +<p>‘Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter +knowth perfectly well (better than you, becauthe I thed it to +her), that I didn’t know what your thon had done, and that +I didn’t want to know—I thed it wath better not, +though I only thought, then, it wath thome thkylarking. +However, thith young man having made it known to be a robbery of +a bank, why, that’h a theriouth thing; muth too theriouth a +thing for me to compound, ath thith young man hath very properly +called it. Conthequently, Thquire, you muthn’t +quarrel with me if I take thith young man’th thide, and +thay he’th right and there’th no help for it. +But I tell you what I’ll do, Thquire; I’ll drive your +thon and thith young man over to the rail, and prevent expothure +here. I can’t conthent to do more, but I’ll do +that.’</p> +<p>Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and deeper affliction on Mr. +Gradgrind’s part, followed this desertion of them by their +last friend. But, Sissy glanced at him with great +attention; nor did she in her own breast misunderstand him. +As they were all going out again, he favoured her with one slight +roll of his movable eye, desiring her to linger behind. As +he locked the door, he said excitedly:</p> +<p>‘The Thquire thtood by you, Thethilia, and I’ll +thtand by the Thquire. More than that: thith ith a +prethiouth rathcal, and belongth to that bluthtering Cove that my +people nearly pitht out o’ winder. It’ll be a +dark night; I’ve got a horthe that’ll do anything but +thpeak; I’ve got a pony that’ll go fifteen mile an +hour with Childerth driving of him; I’ve got a dog +that’ll keep a man to one plathe four-and-twenty +hourth. Get a word with the young Thquire. Tell him, +when he theeth our horthe begin to danthe, not to be afraid of +being thpilt, but to look out for a pony-gig coming up. +Tell him, when he theeth that gig clothe by, to jump down, and +it’ll take him off at a rattling pathe. If my dog +leth thith young man thtir a peg on foot, I give him leave to +go. And if my horthe ever thtirth from that thpot where he +beginth a danthing, till the morning—I don’t know +him?—Tharp’th the word!’</p> +<p>The word was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Childers, +sauntering about the market-place in a pair of slippers, had his +cue, and Mr. Sleary’s equipage was ready. It was a +fine sight, to behold the learned dog barking round it, and Mr. +Sleary instructing him, with his one practicable eye, that Bitzer +was the object of his particular attentions. Soon after +dark they all three got in and started; the learned dog (a +formidable creature) already pinning Bitzer with his eye, and +sticking close to the wheel on his side, that he might be ready +for him in the event of his showing the slightest disposition to +alight.</p> +<p>The other three sat up at the inn all night in great +suspense. At eight o’clock in the morning Mr. Sleary +and the dog reappeared: both in high spirits.</p> +<p>‘All right, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, ‘your +thon may be aboard-a-thip by thith time. Childerth took him +off, an hour and a half after we left there latht night. +The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat (he would +have walthed if he hadn’t been in harneth), and then I gave +him the word and he went to thleep comfortable. When that +prethiouth young Rathcal thed he’d go for’ard afoot, +the dog hung on to hith neck-hankercher with all four legth in +the air and pulled him down and rolled him over. Tho he +come back into the drag, and there he that, ’till I turned +the horthe’th head, at half-patht thixth thith +morning.’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of course; and +hinted as delicately as he could, at a handsome remuneration in +money.</p> +<p>‘I don’t want money mythelf, Thquire; but +Childerth ith a family man, and if you wath to like to offer him +a five-pound note, it mightn’t be unactheptable. +Likewithe if you wath to thtand a collar for the dog, or a thet +of bellth for the horthe, I thould be very glad to take +’em. Brandy and water I alwayth take.’ He +had already called for a glass, and now called for another. +‘If you wouldn’t think it going too far, Thquire, to +make a little thpread for the company at about three and thixth +ahead, not reckoning Luth, it would make ’em +happy.’</p> +<p>All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind very +willingly undertook to render. Though he thought them far +too slight, he said, for such a service.</p> +<p>‘Very well, Thquire; then, if you’ll only give a +Horthe-riding, a bethpeak, whenever you can, you’ll more +than balanthe the account. Now, Thquire, if your daughter +will ethcuthe me, I thould like one parting word with +you.’</p> +<p>Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room; Mr. Sleary, +stirring and drinking his brandy and water as he stood, went +on:</p> +<p>‘Thquire,—you don’t need to be told that +dogth ith wonderful animalth.’</p> +<p>‘Their instinct,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘is +surprising.’</p> +<p>‘Whatever you call it—and I’m bletht if +<i>I</i> know what to call it’—said Sleary, ‘it +ith athtonithing. The way in whith a dog’ll find +you—the dithtanthe he’ll come!’</p> +<p>‘His scent,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘being so +fine.’</p> +<p>‘I’m bletht if I know what to call it,’ +repeated Sleary, shaking his head, ‘but I have had dogth +find me, Thquire, in a way that made me think whether that dog +hadn’t gone to another dog, and thed, “You +don’t happen to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, do +you? Perthon of the name of Thleary, in the Horthe-Riding +way—thtout man—game eye?” And whether +that dog mightn’t have thed, “Well, I can’t +thay I know him mythelf, but I know a dog that I think would be +likely to be acquainted with him.” And whether that +dog mightn’t have thought it over, and thed, +“Thleary, Thleary! O yeth, to be thure! A +friend of mine menthioned him to me at one time. I can get +you hith addreth directly.” In conthequenth of my +being afore the public, and going about tho muth, you thee, there +mutht be a number of dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that +<i>I</i> don’t know!’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind seemed to be quite confounded by this +speculation.</p> +<p>‘Any way,’ said Sleary, after putting his lips to +his brandy and water, ‘ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, +thinthe we wath at Chethter. We wath getting up our +Children in the Wood one morning, when there cometh into our +Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He had travelled a long +way, he wath in a very bad condithon, he wath lame, and pretty +well blind. He went round to our children, one after +another, as if he wath a theeking for a child he know’d; +and then he come to me, and throwd hithelf up behind, and thtood +on hith two forelegth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith +tail and died. Thquire, that dog wath +Merrylegth.’</p> +<p>‘Sissy’s father’s dog!’</p> +<p>‘Thethilia’th father’th old dog. Now, +Thquire, I can take my oath, from my knowledge of that dog, that +that man wath dead—and buried—afore that dog come +back to me. Joth’phine and Childerth and me talked it +over a long time, whether I thould write or not. But we +agreed, “No. There’th nothing comfortable to +tell; why unthettle her mind, and make her unhappy?” +Tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he +broke hith own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with +him; never will be known, now, Thquire, till—no, not till +we know how the dogth findth uth out!’</p> +<p>‘She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this +hour; and she will believe in his affection to the last moment of +her life,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.</p> +<p>‘It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, +don’t it, Thquire?’ said Mr. Sleary, musing as he +looked down into the depths of his brandy and water: ‘one, +that there ith a love in the world, not all Thelf-interetht after +all, but thomething very different; t’other, that it hath a +way of ith own of calculating or not calculating, whith thomehow +or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a name to, ath the +wayth of the dogth ith!’</p> +<p>Mr. Gradgrind looked out of window, and made no reply. +Mr. Sleary emptied his glass and recalled the ladies.</p> +<p>‘Thethilia my dear, kith me and good-bye! Mith +Thquire, to thee you treating of her like a thithter, and a +thithter that you trutht and honour with all your heart and more, +ith a very pretty thight to me. I hope your brother may +live to be better detherving of you, and a greater comfort to +you. Thquire, thake handth, firtht and latht! +Don’t be croth with uth poor vagabondth. People mutht +be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet +they can’t be alwayth a working, they an’t made for +it. You <i>mutht</i> have uth, Thquire. Do the withe +thing and the kind thing too, and make the betht of uth; not the +wurtht!’</p> +<p>‘And I never thought before,’ said Mr. Sleary, +putting his head in at the door again to say it, ‘that I +wath tho muth of a Cackler!’</p> +<h3><a id="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +222</span>CHAPTER IX<br> +<span class="GutSmall">FINAL</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a dangerous thing to see +anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain +blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. +Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser +than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant +discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part +of a woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, +until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At +last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly +connected female—to have it in his power to say, ‘She +was a woman of family, and wanted to stick to me, but I +wouldn’t have it, and got rid of her’—would be +to get the utmost possible amount of crowning glory out of the +connection, and at the same time to punish Mrs. Sparsit according +to her deserts.</p> +<p>Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr. Bounderby +came in to lunch, and sat himself down in the dining-room of +former days, where his portrait was. Mrs. Sparsit sat by +the fire, with her foot in her cotton stirrup, little thinking +whither she was posting.</p> +<p>Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered her pity +for Mr. Bounderby with a veil of quiet melancholy and +contrition. In virtue thereof, it had become her habit to +assume a woful look, which woful look she now bestowed upon her +patron.</p> +<p>‘What’s the matter now, ma’am?’ said +Mr. Bounderby, in a very short, rough way.</p> +<p>‘Pray, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘do not +bite my nose off.’</p> +<p>‘Bite your nose off, ma’am?’ repeated Mr. +Bounderby. ‘<i>Your</i> nose!’ meaning, as Mrs. +Sparsit conceived, that it was too developed a nose for the +purpose. After which offensive implication, he cut himself +a crust of bread, and threw the knife down with a noise.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stirrup, and said, +‘Mr. Bounderby, sir!’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am?’ retorted Mr. Bounderby. +‘What are you staring at?’</p> +<p>‘May I ask, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘have +you been ruffled this morning?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘May I inquire, sir,’ pursued the injured woman, +‘whether <i>I</i> am the unfortunate cause of your having +lost your temper?’</p> +<p>‘Now, I’ll tell you what, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby, ‘I am not come here to be bullied. A +female may be highly connected, but she can’t be permitted +to bother and badger a man in my position, and I am not going to +put up with it.’ (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary to +get on: foreseeing that if he allowed of details, he would be +beaten.)</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriolanian +eyebrows; gathered up her work into its proper basket; and +rose.</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ said she, majestically. ‘It is +apparent to me that I am in your way at present. I will +retire to my own apartment.’</p> +<p>‘Allow me to open the door, ma’am.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, sir; I can do it for myself.’</p> +<p>‘You had better allow me, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby, passing her, and getting his hand upon the lock; +‘because I can take the opportunity of saying a word to +you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I rather +think you are cramped here, do you know? It appears to me, +that, under my humble roof, there’s hardly opening enough +for a lady of your genius in other people’s +affairs.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and said +with great politeness, ‘Really, sir?’</p> +<p>‘I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late +affairs have happened, ma’am,’ said Bounderby; +‘and it appears to my poor judgment—’</p> +<p>‘Oh! Pray, sir,’ Mrs. Sparsit interposed, +with sprightly cheerfulness, ‘don’t disparage your +judgment. Everybody knows how unerring Mr. +Bounderby’s judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of +it. It must be the theme of general conversation. +Disparage anything in yourself but your judgment, sir,’ +said Mrs. Sparsit, laughing.</p> +<p>Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed:</p> +<p>‘It appears to me, ma’am, I say, that a different +sort of establishment altogether would bring out a lady of +<i>your</i> powers. Such an establishment as your relation, +Lady Scadgers’s, now. Don’t you think you might +find some affairs there, ma’am, to interfere +with?’</p> +<p>‘It never occurred to me before, sir,’ returned +Mrs. Sparsit; ‘but now you mention it, should think it +highly probable.’</p> +<p>‘Then suppose you try, ma’am,’ said +Bounderby, laying an envelope with a cheque in it in her little +basket. ‘You can take your own time for going, +ma’am; but perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be more +agreeable to a lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals by +herself, and not to be intruded upon. I really ought to +apologise to you—being only Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown—for having stood in your light so long.’</p> +<p>‘Pray don’t name it, sir,’ returned Mrs. +Sparsit. ‘If that portrait could speak, sir—but +it has the advantage over the original of not possessing the +power of committing itself and disgusting others,—it would +testify, that a long period has elapsed since I first habitually +addressed it as the picture of a Noodle. Nothing that a +Noodle does, can awaken surprise or indignation; the proceedings +of a Noodle can only inspire contempt.’</p> +<p>Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features like a +medal struck to commemorate her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed +him fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully past him, and +ascended the staircase. Mr. Bounderby closed the door, and +stood before the fire; projecting himself after his old explosive +manner into his portrait—and into futurity.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Into how much of futurity? He saw Mrs. Sparsit fighting +out a daily fight at the points of all the weapons in the female +armoury, with the grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting Lady +Scadgers, still laid up in bed with her mysterious leg, and +gobbling her insufficient income down by about the middle of +every quarter, in a mean little airless lodging, a mere closet +for one, a mere crib for two; but did he see more? Did he +catch any glimpse of himself making a show of Bitzer to +strangers, as the rising young man, so devoted to his +master’s great merits, who had won young Tom’s place, +and had almost captured young Tom himself, in the times when by +various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint +reflection of his own image making a vain-glorious will, whereby +five-and-twenty Humbugs, past five-and-fifty years of age, each +taking upon himself the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, +should for ever dine in Bounderby Hall, for ever lodge in +Bounderby buildings, for ever attend a Bounderby chapel, for ever +go to sleep under a Bounderby chaplain, for ever be supported out +of a Bounderby estate, and for ever nauseate all healthy +stomachs, with a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and +bluster? Had he any prescience of the day, five years to +come, when Josiah Bounderby of Coketown was to die of a fit in +the Coketown street, and this same precious will was to begin its +long career of quibble, plunder, false pretences, vile example, +little service and much law? Probably not. Yet the +portrait was to see it all out.</p> +<p>Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour, +sitting thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity +did <i>he</i> see? Did he see himself, a white-haired +decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflexible theories to +appointed circumstances; making his facts and figures subservient +to Faith, Hope, and Charity; and no longer trying to grind that +Heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight +of himself, therefore much despised by his late political +associates? Did he see them, in the era of its being quite +settled that the national dustmen have only to do with one +another, and owe no duty to an abstraction called a People, +‘taunting the honourable gentleman’ with this and +with that and with what not, five nights a-week, until the small +hours of the morning? Probably he had that much +foreknowledge, knowing his men.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the +fire as in days of yore, though with a gentler and a humbler +face. How much of the future might arise before <i>her</i> +vision? Broadsides in the streets, signed with her +father’s name, exonerating the late Stephen Blackpool, +weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing the guilt of his +own son, with such extenuation as his years and temptation (he +could not bring himself to add, his education) might beseech; +were of the Present. So, Stephen Blackpool’s +tombstone, with her father’s record of his death, was +almost of the Present, for she knew it was to be. These +things she could plainly see. But, how much of the +Future?</p> +<p>A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once +again appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing +to and fro at the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of +pensive beauty, always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and +serene, and even cheerful; who, of all the people in the place, +alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch +of her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the town secretly +begging of her, and crying to her; a woman working, ever working, +but content to do it, and preferring to do it as her natural lot, +until she should be too old to labour any more? Did Louisa +see this? Such a thing was to be.</p> +<p>A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away, writing, on +paper blotted with tears, that her words had too soon come true, +and that all the treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered +for a sight of her dear face? At length this brother coming +nearer home, with hope of seeing her, and being delayed by +illness; and then a letter, in a strange hand, saying ‘he +died in hospital, of fever, such a day, and died in penitence and +love of you: his last word being your name’? Did +Louisa see these things? Such things were to be.</p> +<p>Herself again a wife—a mother—lovingly watchful of +her children, ever careful that they should have a childhood of +the mind no less than a childhood of the body, as knowing it to +be even a more beautiful thing, and a possession, any hoarded +scrap of which, is a blessing and happiness to the wisest? +Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was never to be.</p> +<p>But, happy Sissy’s happy children loving her; all +children loving her; she, grown learned in childish lore; +thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying +hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their +lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and +delights, without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the +sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the +plainest national prosperity figures can show, will be the +Writing on the Wall,—she holding this course as part of no +fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, +or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty +to be done,—did Louisa see these things of herself? +These things were to be.</p> +<p>Dear reader! It rests with you and me, whether, in our +two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. Let +them be! We shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to +see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a id="footnote0"></a><a href="#citation0" +class="footnote">[0]</a> <i>Reprinted Pieces</i> was +released as a separate eText by Project Gutenberg, and is not +included in this eText.</p> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p100b.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p100b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7880065 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p100b.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p100s.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p100s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2da5376 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p100s.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p132b.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p132b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..925a1d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p132b.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p132s.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p132s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..847cf2b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p132s.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p206b.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p206b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..98512cd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p206b.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p206s.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p206s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe8caee --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p206s.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p64b.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p64b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb1d729 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p64b.jpg diff --git a/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p64s.jpg b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p64s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f81c0e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old-2023-12-18/786-h/images/p64s.jpg |
