Бесплатный фрагмент - A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such human each ievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted inby poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be histumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, thoughthey work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as theywent about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertainany suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical andtraitorous.

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection tojustify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, andhighway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town withoutremoving their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom hestopped in his character of «the Captain,» gallantly shot himthrough the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by sevenrobbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot deadhimself by the other four, «in consequence of the failure of hisammunition:” after which the mail was robbed in peace; thatmagnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to standand deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled theillustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in Londongaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the lawfired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot andball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noblelords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, tosearch for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, andthe musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of theseoccurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, thehangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constantrequisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken onTuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, andnow burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, takingthe life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretchedpilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence.

Allthese things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and closeupon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and thefair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rightswith a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred andseventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of smallcreatures — the creatures of this chronicle among the rest — alongthe roads that lay before them.

Itwas the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom this history has business.The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumberedup Shooter’s Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of themail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had theleast relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, butbecause the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, wereall so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinousintent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachmanand guard, however, in combination, had read that article of warwhich forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team hadcapitulated and returned to their duty.

Withdrooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through thethick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they werefalling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver restedthem and brought them to a stand, with a wary «Wo-ho! so-ho-then!«the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it — likean unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got upthe hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passengerstarted, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind.

Therewas a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in itsforlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest andfinding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow waythrough the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread oneanother, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was denseenough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps butthese its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of thelabouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all.

Twoother passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by theside of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and overthe ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and eachwas hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, foranybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. Asto the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could producesomebody in «the Captain’s» pay, ranging from the landlord tothe lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon thecards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Fridaynight in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter’s Hill, as he stood on his own particularperch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and ahand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay atthe top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on asubstratum of cutlass.

TheDover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspectedthe passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure ofnothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clearconscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they werenot fit for the journey.

«Wo-ho!«said the coachman. «So, then! One more pull and you’re at the topand be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you toit! — Joe!»

«Halloa!«the guard replied.

«Whato’clock do you make it, Joe?»

«Tenminutes, good, past eleven.»

«Myblood!» ejaculated the vexed coachman, «and not atop of Shooter’syet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!»

Theemphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followedsuit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots ofits passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when thecoach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of thethree had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a littleahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fairway of getting shot instantly as a highwayman.

Thelast burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horsesstopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheelfor the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in.

«Tst! Joe!» cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from hisbox.

«Whatdo you say, Tom?»

Theyboth listened.

«Isay a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.»

«I saya horse at a gallop, Tom,» returned the guard, leaving his hold ofthe door, and mounting nimbly to his place. «Gentlemen! In theking’s name, all of you!»

Withthis hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on theoffensive.

Thepassenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; theyremained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman tothe guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. Thecoachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphaticleader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting.

Thestillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouringof the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quietindeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion tothe coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of thepassengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, thequiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, andholding the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation.

Thesound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill.

«So-ho!«the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. «Yo there! Stand! Ishall fire!»

Thepace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man’s voice called from the mist, «Is that the Dover mail?»

«Neveryou mind what it is!» the guard retorted. «What are you?»

«Is thatthe Dover mail?»

«Whydo you want to know?»

«Iwant a passenger, if it is.»

«Whatpassenger?»

«Mr. Jarvis Lorry.»

Ourbooked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully.

«Keepwhere you are,» the guard called to the voice in the mist,«because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set rightin your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight.»

«Whatis the matter?» asked the passenger, then, with mildly quaveringspeech. «Who wants me? Is it Jerry?»

(«Idon’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,» growled the guard tohimself. «He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.»)

«Yes, Mr. Lorry.»

«Whatis the matter?»

«Adespatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.»

«Iknow this messenger, guard,» said Mr. Lorry, getting down into theroad — assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the othertwo passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut thedoor, and pulled up the window. «He may come close; there’snothing wrong.»

«Ihope there ain’t, but I can’t make so «Nation sure of that,«said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. «Hallo you!»

«Well! And hallo you!» said Jerry, more hoarsely than before.

«Comeon at a footpace! d’ye mind me? And if you’ve got holsters tothat saddle o’ yourn, don’t let me see your hand go nigh ’em.For I’m a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takesthe form of Lead. So now let’s look at you.»

Thefigures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. Therider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed thepassenger a small folded paper. The rider’s horse was blown, andboth horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of thehorse to the hat of the man.

«Guard!«said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence.

Thewatchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raisedblunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered curtly, «Sir.»

«Thereis nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson’s Bank. You must knowTellson’s Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crownto drink. I may read this?»

«Ifso be as you’re quick, sir.»

Heopened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read — firstto himself and then aloud: ««Wait at Dover for Mam’selle.«It’s not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answerwas, Recalled to life.»

Jerrystarted in his saddle. «That’s a Blazing strange answer, too,«said he, at his hoarsest.

«Takethat message back, and they will know that I received this, as wellas if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night.»

Withthose words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not atall assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secretedtheir watches and purses in their boots, and were now making ageneral pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose thanto escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action.

Thecoach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing roundit as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbussin his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, andhaving looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a fewsmith’s tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he wasfurnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had beenblown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only toshut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off thestraw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he werelucky) in five minutes.

«Tom!«softly over the coach roof.

«Hallo, Joe.»

«Didyou hear the message?»

«Idid, Joe.»

«Whatdid you make of it, Tom?»

«Nothingat all, Joe.»

«That’sa coincidence, too,» the guard mused, «for I made the same of itmyself.»

Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not onlyto ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shakethe wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of holding abouthalf a gallon. After standing with the bridle over hisheavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longerwithin hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walkdown the hill.

«Afterthat there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won’t trust yourfore-legs till I get you on the level,» said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. «„Recalled to life.“ That’s a Blazingstrange message. Much of that wouldn’t do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You’d be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was tocome into fashion, Jerry!»

Awonderfulfact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to bethat profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemnconsideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one ofthose darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that everyroom in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beatingheart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some ofits imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of theawfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can Iturn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope intime to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of thisunfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, Ihave had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. Itwas appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever andfor ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the watershould be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing onits surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend isdead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secretthat was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry inmine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this citythrough which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than itsbusy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or thanI am to them?

Asto this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, themessenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. Sowith the three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of onelumbering old mail coach; they were mysteries to one another, ascomplete as if each had been in his own coach and six, or his owncoach and sixty, with the breadth of a county between him and thenext.

Themessenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often atale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep hisown counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyesthat assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surfaceblack, with no depth in the colour or form, and much too neartogether — as if they were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like a three-cornered spittoon, and over agreat muffler for the chin and throat, which descended nearly to thewearer’s knees. When he stopped for drink, he moved this mufflerwith his left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with hisright; as soon as that was done, he muffled again.

«No, Jerry, no!» said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode.«It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, itwouldn’t suit your lineof business! Recalled — ! Bust me if I don’t think he’d been adrinking!»

Hismessage perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, severaltimes, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedlyall over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose.It was so like Smith’s work, so much more like the top of astrongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players atleap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in theworld to go over.

Whilehe trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the nightwatchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows ofthe night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, andtook such shapes to the mare as arose out of her privatetopics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied atevery shadow on the road.

Whattime, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon itstedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the formstheir dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested.

Tellson’sBank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger — with anarm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it tokeep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving himinto his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt — nodded inhis place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and thecoach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle ofopposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke ofbusiness. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and moredrafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with allits foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Thenthe strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s, with such of theirvaluable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and itwas not a little that he knew about them), opened before him, and hewent in among them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he hadlast seen them.

But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach (ina confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was alwayswith him, there was another current of impression that never ceasedto run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one outof a grave.

Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him wasthe true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did notindicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty byyears, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeededone another; so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the dozingpassenger inquired of this spectre:

«Buriedhow long?»

Theanswer was always the same: «Almost eighteen years.»

«Youhad abandoned all hope of being dug out?»

«Longago.»

«Youknow that you are recalled to life?»

«Theytell me so.»

«Ihope you care to live?»

«Ican’t say.»

«ShallI show her to you? Will you come and see her?»

Theanswers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimesthe broken reply was, «Wait! It would kill me if I saw her toosoon.» Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and thenit was, «Take me to her.» Sometimes it was staring andbewildered, and then it was, «I don’t know her. I don’tunderstand.»

Aftersuch imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, anddig, dig — now with a spade, now with a great key, now with hishands — to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, withearth hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away todust. The passenger would then start to himself, and lower thewindow, to get the reality of mist and rain on his cheek.

Yeteven when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the movingpatch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadsideretreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fallinto the train of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house byTemple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, wouldall be there. Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again.

«Buriedhow long?»

«Almosteighteen years.»

«Ihope you care to live?»

«Ican’t say.»

Dig — dig — dig — untilan impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonishhim to pull up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathernstrap, and speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mindlost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and thegrave.

«Buriedhow long?»

«Almosteighteen years.»

«Youhad abandoned all hope of being dug out?»

«Longago.»

Thewords were still in his hearing as just spoken — distinctly in hishearing as ever spoken words had been in his life — when the wearypassenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found thatthe shadows of the night were gone.

Helowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was aridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been leftlast night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quietcoppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellowstill remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, thesky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful.

«Eighteenyears!» said the passenger, looking at the sun. «Gracious Creatorof day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!»

Whenthe mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coach-door ashis custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mailjourney from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate anadventurous traveller upon.

Bythat time, there was only one adventurous traveller left becongratulated: for the two others had been set down at theirrespective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and itsobscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, thepassenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle ofshaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like alarger sort of dog.

«Therewill be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer?»

«Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tidewill serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, sir?»

«Ishall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber.»

«Andthen breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. ShowConcord! Gentleman’s valise and hot water to Concord. Pull offgentleman’s boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord!»

TheConcord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from headto foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of theRoyal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go intoit, all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all loitering by accident at various points of the road betweenthe Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formallydressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very wellkept, with large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passedalong on his way to his breakfast.

Thecoffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentlemanin brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as hesat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat sostill, that he might have been sitting for his portrait.

Veryorderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and aloud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, asthough it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity andevanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a littlevain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and wereof a fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, weretrim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting veryclose to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments ofsilk or glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance withhis stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke uponthe neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in thesunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted, wasstill lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyesthat it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains todrill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson’s Bank. Hehad a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, borefew traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerksin Tellson’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of otherpeople; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, comeeasily off and on.

Completinghis resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorrydropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, and hesaid to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it:

«Iwish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at anytime to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only askfor a gentleman from Tellson’s Bank. Please to let me know.»

«Yes, sir. Tellson’s Bank in London, sir?»

«Yes.»

«Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen intheir travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company’sHouse.»

«Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one.»

«Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, sir?»

«Notof late years. It is fifteen years since we — since I — came lastfrom France.»

«Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people’s timehere, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir.»

«Ibelieve so.»

«ButI would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson andCompany was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteenyears ago?»

«Youmight treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far fromthe truth.»

«Indeed, sir!»

Roundinghis mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, droppedinto a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while heate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to theimmemorial usage of waiters in all ages.

WhenMr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on thebeach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away fromthe beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marineostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumblingwildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked wasdestruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of sostrong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fishwent up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped inthe sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity ofstrolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at thosetimes when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, whodid no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised largefortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhoodcould endure a lamplighter.

Asthe day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been atintervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, becameagain charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry’s thoughts seemed tocloud too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind wasbusily digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals.

Abottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals noharm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work.Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his lastglassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as isever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion whohas got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up thenarrow street, and rumbled into the inn-yard.

Heset down his glass untouched. «This is Mam’selle!» said he.

Ina very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manettehad arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman fromTellson’s.

«Sosoon?»

MissManette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required nonethen, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson’simmediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience.

Thegentleman from Tellson’s had nothing left for it but to empty hisglass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxenwig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette’s apartment.It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with blackhorsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiledand oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle ofthe room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if they wereburied, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak ofcould be expected from them until they were dug out.

Theobscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking hisway over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the twotall candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table betweenthem and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in ariding-cloak, and still holding her straw travelling-hat by itsribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a short, slight, prettyfigure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met hisown with an inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), of rifting and knittingitself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, orwonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, though itincluded all the four expressions — as his eyes rested on thesethings, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom hehad held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, onecold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. Thelikeness passed away, like a breath along the surface of the gauntpier-glass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital processionof negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were offeringblack baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the femininegender — and he made his formal bow to Miss Manette.

«Praytake a seat, sir.» In a very clear and pleasant young voice; alittle foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed.

«Ikiss your hand, miss,» said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of anearlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat.

«Ireceived a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me thatsome intelligence — or discovery — »

«Theword is not material, miss; either word will do.»

« — respectingthe small property of my poor father, whom I never saw — so longdead — »

Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards thehospital procession of negro cupids. As if they hadany help for anybody in their absurd baskets!

« — renderedit necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with agentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for thepurpose.»

«Myself.»

«AsI was prepared to hear, sir.»

Shecurtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with apretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiserhe was than she. He made her another bow.

«Ireplied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, bythose who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should goto France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could gowith me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to placemyself, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman’sprotection. The gentleman had left London, but I think a messengerwas sent after him to beg the favour of his waiting for me here.»

«Iwas happy,» said Mr. Lorry, «to be entrusted with the charge. Ishall be more happy to execute it.»

«Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me bythe Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of thebusiness, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprisingnature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have astrong and eager interest to know what they are.»

«Naturally,«said Mr. Lorry. «Yes — I—»

Aftera pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears,«It is very difficult to begin.»

Hedid not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The youngforehead lifted itself into that singular expression — but it waspretty and characteristic, besides being singular — and she raisedher hand, as if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayedsome passing shadow.

«Areyou quite a stranger to me, sir?»

«AmI not?» Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards withan argumentative smile.

Betweenthe eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line ofwhich was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, theexpression deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in thechair by which she had hitherto remained standing. He watched her asshe mused, and the moment she raised her eyes again, went on:

«Inyour adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address youas a young English lady, Miss Manette?»

«Ifyou please, sir.»

«MissManette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquitmyself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed me any more than ifI was a speaking machine — truly, I am not much else. I will, withyour leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our customers.»

«Story!»

Heseemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, in a hurry, «Yes, customers; in the banking business we usuallycall our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; ascientific gentleman; a man of great acquirements — a Doctor.»

«Notof Beauvais?»

«Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentlemanwas of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentlemanwas of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there. Ourrelations were business relations, but confidential. I was at thattime in our French House, and had been — oh! twenty years.»

«Atthat time — I may ask, at what time, sir?»

«Ispeak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married — an English lady — andI was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of manyother French gentlemen and French families, were entirely inTellson’s hands. In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee ofone kind or other for scores of our customers. These are merebusiness relations, miss; there is no friendship in them, noparticular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have passed from oneto another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass fromone of our customers to another in the course of my business day; inshort, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine. To go on — »

«Butthis is my father’s story, sir; and I begin to think» — thecuriously roughened forehead was very intent upon him — «that whenI was left an orphan through my mother’s surviving my father onlytwo years, it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure itwas you.»

Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced totake his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He thenconducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holdingthe chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns torub his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stoodlooking down into her face while she sat looking up into his.

«MissManette, it was I.And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying Ihad no feelings, and that all the relations I hold with myfellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you reflect that Ihave never seen you since. No; you have been the ward of Tellson’sHouse since, and I have been busy with the other business ofTellson’s House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chanceof them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniaryMangle.»

Afterthis odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorryflattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which wasmost unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shiningsurface was before), and resumed his former attitude.

«Sofar, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your regrettedfather. Now comes the difference. If your father had not died when hedid — Don’t be frightened! How you start!»

Shedid, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands.

«Pray,«said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand from theback of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that claspedhim in so violent a tremble: «pray control your agitation — amatter of business. As I was saying — »

Herlook so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and began anew:

«AsI was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had suddenlyand silently disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had notbeen difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art couldtrace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise aprivilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraidto speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, theprivilege of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one tothe oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife hadimplored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidingsof him, and all quite in vain; — then the history of your fatherwould have been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctorof Beauvais.»

«Ientreat you to tell me more, sir.»

«Iwill. I am going to. You can bear it?»

«Ican bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at thismoment.»

«Youspeak collectedly, and you — are collected.That’s good!» (Though his manner was less satisfied than hiswords.) «A matter of business. Regard it as a matter ofbusiness — business that must be done. Now if this doctor’s wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, had suffered so intenselyfrom this cause before her little child was born — »

«Thelittle child was a daughter, sir.»

«Adaughter. A-a-matter of business — don’t be distressed. Miss, ifthe poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child wasborn, that she came to the determination of sparing the poor childthe inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by rearing her in the belief that her father was dead — No, don’tkneel! In Heaven’s name why should you kneel to me!»

«Forthe truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth!»

«A — amatter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact businessif I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindly mentionnow, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how manyshillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should beso much more at my ease about your state of mind.»

Withoutdirectly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had verygently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp hiswrists were so much more steady than they had been, that shecommunicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry.

«That’sright, that’s right. Courage! Business! You have business beforeyou; useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course withyou. And when she died — I believe broken-hearted — having neverslackened her unavailing search for your father, she left you, at twoyears old, to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without thedark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soonwore his heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingeringyears.»

Ashe said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on theflowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it might havebeen already tinged with grey.

«Youknow that your parents had no great possession, and that what theyhad was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no newdiscovery, of money, or of any other property; but — »

Hefelt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in theforehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and whichwas now immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror.

«Buthe has been — been found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is tooprobable; almost a wreck, it is possible; though we will hope thebest. Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an oldservant in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if Ican: you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.»

Ashiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in alow, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were saying it in adream,

«Iam going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost — not him!»

Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. «There, there, there! See now, see now! The best and the worst are known to you, now. You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon athis dear side.»

Sherepeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, «I have been free, Ihave been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me!»

«Onlyone thing more,» said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as awholesome means of enforcing her attention: «he has been foundunder another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. Itwould be worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than uselessto seek to know whether he has been for years overlooked, or alwaysdesignedly held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to makeany inquiries, because it would be dangerous. Better not to mentionthe subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove him — for a whileat all events — out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, andeven Tellson’s, important as they are to French credit, avoid allnaming of the matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openlyreferring to it. This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line,«Recalled to Life;’ which may mean anything. But what is thematter! She doesn’t notice a word! Miss Manette!»

Perfectlystill and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she satunder his hand, utterly insensible; with her eyes open and fixed uponhim, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved orbranded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, thathe feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore hecalled out loudly for assistance without moving.

Awild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed tobe all of a red colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed insome extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, and to have on her head amost wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and goodmeasure too, or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room inadvance of the inn servants, and soon settled the question of hisdetachment from the poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon hischest, and sending him flying back against the nearest wall.

(«Ireally think this must be a man!» was Mr. Lorry’s breathlessreflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.)

«Why, look at you all!» bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants.«Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead of standing therestaring at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don’t you goand fetch things? I’ll let you know, if you don’t bringsmelling-salts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will.»

Therewas an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she softlylaid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill andgentleness: calling her «my precious!» and «my bird!» andspreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great prideand care.

«Andyou in brown!» she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry;«couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, withoutfrightening her to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face andher cold hands. Do you call that beinga Banker?»

Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard toanswer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feeblersympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished theinn servants under the mysterious penalty of «letting them know”something not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered hercharge by a regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay herdrooping head upon her shoulder.

«Ihope she will do well now,» said Mr. Lorry.

«Nothanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty!»

«Ihope,» said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy andhumility, «that you accompany Miss Manette to France?»

«Alikely thing, too!» replied the strong woman. «If it was everintended that I should go across salt water, do you supposeProvidence would have cast my lot in an island?»

Thisbeing another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew toconsider it.

Alargecask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accidenthad happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled outwith a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones justoutside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell.

Allthe people within reach had suspended their business, or theiridleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregularstones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one mighthave thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approachedthem, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each byits own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some menkneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, ortried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, beforethe wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men andwomen, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilatedearthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, whichwere squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made smallmud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed bylookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut offlittle streams of wine that started away in new directions; othersdevoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments witheager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and notonly did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along withit, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybodyacquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence.

Ashrill sound of laughter and of amused voices — voices of men, women, and children — resounded in the street while this wine game lasted.There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. Therewas a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on thepart of every one to join some other one, which led, especially amongthe luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking ofhealths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, adozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it hadbeen most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. Theman who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, setit in motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the littlepot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain inher own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returnedto it; men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, whohad emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away, todescend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared morenatural to it than sunshine.

Thewine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street inthe suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It hadstained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, andmany wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left redmarks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed herbaby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about herhead again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker sobesmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcapthan in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddywine-lees — blood.

Thetime was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on thestreet-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.

Andnow that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleamhad driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it washeavy — cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords inwaiting on the saintly presence — nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergonea terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not inthe fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at everycorner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The millwhich had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young peopleold; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age andcoming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere.Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothingthat hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them withstraw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in everyfragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up fromthe filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything toeat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, written inevery small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at thesausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered forsale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts inthe turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthingporringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant dropsof oil.

Itsabiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow windingstreet, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streetsdiverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling ofrags and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look uponthem that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yetsome wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay.Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were notwanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what theysuppressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of thegallows-rope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The tradesigns (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grimillustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman painted up, onlythe leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves.The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, croakedover their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and weregloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in aflourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler’sknives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers wereheavy, and the gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stonesof the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, tomake amends, ran down the middle of the street — when it ran at all: which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentricfits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, oneclumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley; at night, when thelamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as ifthey were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew werein peril of tempest.

For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region shouldhave watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling upmen by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of theircondition. But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blewover France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning.

Thewine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in itsappearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stoodoutside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on atthe struggle for the lost wine. «It’s not my affair,» said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. «The people from the marketdid it. Let them bring another.»

There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, hecalled to him across the way:

«Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?»

Thefellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often theway with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as isoften the way with his tribe too.

«Whatnow? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?» said the wine-shopkeeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handfulof mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. «Why do youwrite in the public streets? Is there — tell me thou — is there noother place to write such words in?»

Inhis expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker rapped it with hisown, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantasticdancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his footinto his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to saywolfishly practical character, he looked, under those circumstances.

«Putit on, put it on,» said the other. «Call wine, wine; and finishthere.» With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker’sdress, such as it was — quite deliberately, as having dirtied thehand on his account; and then recrossed the road and entered thewine-shop.

Thiswine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was abitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bareto the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than hisown crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humouredlooking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man ofa strong resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothingwould turn the man.

MadameDefarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in.Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with awatchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large handheavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composureof manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which onemight have predicated that she did not often make mistakes againstherself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. MadameDefarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had aquantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to theconcealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, butshe had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thusengaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, MadameDefarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just onegrain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darklydefined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shopamong the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while hestepped over the way.

Thewine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they restedupon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in acorner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playingdominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a shortsupply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice thatthe elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, «This isour man.»

«Whatthe devil do you doin that galley there?» said Monsieur Defarge to himself; «I don’tknow you.»

But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discoursewith the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter.

«Howgoes it, Jacques?» said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. «Isall the spilt wine swallowed?»

«Everydrop, Jacques,» answered Monsieur Defarge.

Whenthis interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.

«Itis not often,» said the second of the three, addressing MonsieurDefarge, «that many of these miserable beasts know the taste ofwine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?»

«Itis so, Jacques,» Monsieur Defarge returned.

Atthis second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, stillusing her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain ofcough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.

Thelast of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinkingvessel and smacked his lips.

«Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle alwayshave in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?»

«Youare right, Jacques,» was the response of Monsieur Defarge.

Thisthird interchange of the Christian name was completed at the momentwhen Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, andslightly rustled in her seat.

«Holdthen! True!» muttered her husband. «Gentlemen — my wife!»

Thethree customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with threeflourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, andgiving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner roundthe wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness andrepose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.

«Gentlemen,«said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her,«good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, that you wishedto see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifthfloor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyardclose to the left here,» pointing with his hand, «near to thewindow of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you hasalready been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!»

Theypaid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defargewere studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentlemanadvanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word.

«Willingly, sir,» said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to thedoor.

Theirconference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the firstword, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It hadnot lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman thenbeckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defargeknitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing.

Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed hisown company just before. It opened from a stinking little blackcourtyard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile ofhouses, inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomytile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defargebent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put herhand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man.

«Itis very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.«Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they beganascending the stairs.

«Ishe alone?» the latter whispered.

«Alone! God help him, who should be with him!» said the other, in the samelow voice.

«Ishe always alone, then?»

«Yes.»

«Ofhis own desire?»

«Ofhis own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they foundme and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril bediscreet — as he was then, so he is now.»

«Heis greatly changed?»

«Changed!»

Thekeeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, andmutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half soforcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he andhis two companions ascended higher and higher.

Sucha staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowdedparts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it wasvile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every littlehabitation within the great foul nest of one high building — that isto say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on thegeneral staircase — left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. Theuncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty and deprivation had notloaded it with their intangible impurities; the two bad sourcescombined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, bya steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to hisown disturbance of mind, and to his young companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped torest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by whichany languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed toescape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Throughthe rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were caught of thejumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower thanthe summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise onit of healthy life or wholesome aspirations.

Atlast, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for thethird time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeperinclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before thegarret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going alittle in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets ofthe coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key.

«Thedoor is locked then, my friend?» said Mr. Lorry, surprised.

«Ay. Yes,» was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge.

«Youthink it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?»

«Ithink it necessary to turn the key.» Monsieur Defarge whispered itcloser in his ear, and frowned heavily.

«Why?»

«Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would befrightened — rave — tear himself to pieces — die — come to I know notwhat harm — if his door was left open.»

«Isit possible!» exclaimed Mr. Lorry.

«Isit possible!» repeated Defarge, bitterly. «Yes. And a beautifulworld we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done — done, see you! — under that sky there, every day. Longlive the Devil. Let us go on.»

Thisdialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word ofit had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time shetrembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deepanxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry feltit incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance.

«Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; itis but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. Then, all thegood you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you bring tohim, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. That’swell, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!»

Theywent up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they weresoon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came allat once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down closetogether at the side of a door, and who were intently looking intothe room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or holes inthe wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, androse, and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had beendrinking in the wine-shop.

«Iforgot them in the surprise of your visit,» explained MonsieurDefarge. «Leave us, good boys; we have business here.»

Thethree glided by, and went silently down.

Thereappearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of thewine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger:

«Doyou make a show of Monsieur Manette?»

«Ishow him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.»

«Isthat well?»

«I thinkit is well.»

«Whoare the few? How do you choose them?»

«Ichoose them as real men, of my name — Jacques is my name — to whomthe sight is likely to do good. Enough; you are English; that isanother thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment.»

Withan admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked inthrough the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, hestruck twice or thrice upon the door — evidently with no other objectthan to make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the keyacross it, three or four times, before he put it clumsily into thelock, and turned it as heavily as he could.

Thedoor slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the roomand said something. A faint voice answered something. Little morethan a single syllable could have been spoken on either side.

Helooked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorrygot his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, and held her; forhe felt that she was sinking.

«A-a-a-business, business!» he urged, with a moisture that was not of businessshining on his cheek. «Come in, come in!»

«Iam afraid of it,» she answered, shuddering.

«Ofit? What?»

«Imean of him. Of my father.»

Renderedin a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of theirconductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon hisshoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sather down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him.

Defargedrew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, took outthe key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise ashe could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measuredtread to where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round.

Thegarret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dimand dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in theroof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores fromthe street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, likeany other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one halfof this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a verylittle way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through thesemeans, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the abilityto do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of thatkind was being done in the garret; for, with his back towards thedoor, and his face towards the window where the keeper of thewine-shop stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a lowbench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.

Goodday!» said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head thatbent low over the shoemaking.

Itwas raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to thesalutation, as if it were at a distance:

«Goodday!»

«Youare still hard at work, I see?»

Aftera long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the voicereplied, «Yes — I am working.» This time, a pair of haggard eyeshad looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped again.

Thefaintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not thefaintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare nodoubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that itwas the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feebleecho of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost thelife and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senseslike a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain. Sosunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground.So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that afamished traveller, wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tone before lyingdown to die.

Someminutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had looked upagain: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull mechanicalperception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor theywere aware of had stood, was not yet empty.

«Iwant,» said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from theshoemaker, «to let in a little more light here. You can bear alittle more?»

Theshoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening, atthe floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on theother side of him; then, upward at the speaker.

«Whatdid you say?»

«Youcan bear a little more light?»

«Imust bear it, if you let it in.» (Laying the palest shadow of astress upon the second word.)

Theopened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at thatangle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, andshowed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing inhis labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather wereat his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, butnot very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. Thehollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to looklarge, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had been really otherwise; but, they were naturallylarge, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay openat the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, andhis old canvas frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poortatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light andair, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, thatit would have been hard to say which was which.

Hehad put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bonesof it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, without first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, asif he had lost the habit of associating place with sound; he neverspoke, without first wandering in this manner, and forgetting tospeak.

«Areyou going to finish that pair of shoes to-day?» asked Defarge, motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward.

«Whatdid you say?»

«Doyou mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?»

«Ican’t say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don’t know.»

But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it again.

Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. Whenhe had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, theshoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips ashe looked at it (his lips and his nails were of the same palelead-colour), and then the hand dropped to his work, and he once morebent over the shoe. The look and the action had occupied but aninstant.

«Youhave a visitor, you see,» said Monsieur Defarge.

«Whatdid you say?»

«Hereis a visitor.»

Theshoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from hiswork.

«Come!«said Defarge. «Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoe when hesees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. Take it, monsieur.»

Mr. Lorry took it in his hand.

«Tellmonsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker’s name.»

Therewas a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied:

«Iforget what it was you asked me. What did you say?»

«Isaid, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur’sinformation?»

«Itis a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. It is in thepresent mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my hand.«He glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride.

«Andthe maker’s name?» said Defarge.

Nowthat he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right handin the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand inthe hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his beardedchin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment’sintermission. The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into whichhe always sank when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weakperson from a swoon, or endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying man.

«Didyou ask me for my name?»

«AssuredlyI did.»

«OneHundred and Five, North Tower.»

«Isthat all?»

«OneHundred and Five, North Tower.»

Witha weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to workagain, until the silence was again broken.

«Youare not a shoemaker by trade?» said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastlyat him.

Hishaggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred thequestion to him: but as no help came from that quarter, they turnedback on the questioner when they had sought the ground.

«Iam not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I—Ilearnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to — »

Helapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on hishands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the facefrom which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, andresumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to asubject of last night.

«Iasked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty aftera long while, and I have made shoes ever since.»

Ashe held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face:

«MonsieurManette, do you remember nothing of me?»

Theshoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at thequestioner.

«MonsieurManette»; Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge’s arm; «do youremember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there noold banker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising inyour mind, Monsieur Manette?»

Asthe captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorryand at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intentintelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forcedthemselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They wereoverclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they hadbeen there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fairyoung face of her who had crept along the wall to a point where shecould see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with handswhich at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if noteven to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but which werenow extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay thespectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to lifeand hope — so exactly was the expression repeated (though in strongercharacters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it hadpassed like a moving light, from him to her.

Darknesshad fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and lessattentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground andlooked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, hetook the shoe up, and resumed his work.

«Haveyou recognised him, monsieur?» asked Defarge in a whisper.

«Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I haveunquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knewso well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!»

Shehad moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench onwhich he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness of thefigure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stoopedover his labour.

Nota word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work.

Ithappened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument inhis hand, for his shoemaker’s knife. It lay on that side of himwhich was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, andwas stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of herdress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators startedforward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had nofear of his striking at her with the knife, though they had.

Hestared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips beganto form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard tosay:

«Whatis this?»

Withthe tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her lips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, as if shelaid his ruined head there.

«Youare not the gaoler’s daughter?»

Shesighed «No.»

«Whoare you?»

Notyet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench besidehim. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A strangethrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame; he laid the knife down softly, as he sat staring at her.

Hergolden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushedaside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by little andlittle, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action hewent astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at hisshoemaking.

Butnot for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his shoulder.After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to be surethat it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand to hisneck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded ragattached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and itcontained a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or twolong golden hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off upon hisfinger.

Hetook her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. «It isthe same. How can it be! When was it! How was it!»

Asthe concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed tobecome conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to thelight, and looked at her.

«Shehad laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summonedout — she had a fear of my going, though I had none — and when I wasbrought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. „Youwill leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.“ Those were the words I said. Iremember them very well.»

Heformed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it. But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to himcoherently, though slowly.

«Howwas this? — Wasit you?»

Oncemore, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with afrightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, andonly said, in a low voice, «I entreat you, good gentlemen, do notcome near us, do not speak, do not move!»

«Hark!«he exclaimed. «Whose voice was that?»

Hishands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his whitehair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything but hisshoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet andtried to secure it in his breast; but he still looked at her, andgloomily shook his head.

«No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can’t be. See what theprisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not the faceshe knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She was — andHe was — before the slow years of the North Tower — ages ago. What isyour name, my gentle angel?»

Hailinghis softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her knees beforehim, with her appealing hands upon his breast.

«O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, hard history. ButI cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All thatI may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me andto bless me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear!»

Hiscold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed andlighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him.

«Ifyou hear in my voice — I don’t know that it is so, but I hope itis — if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once wassweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, intouching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay onyour breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will betrue to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, Ibring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poorheart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!»

Sheheld him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like achild.

«If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that Ihave come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to beat peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laidwaste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weepfor it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my fatherwho is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have tokneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for having neverfor his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep forit, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strikeagainst my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God!»

Hehad sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight sotouching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering whichhad gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces.

Whenthe quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heavingbreast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must followall storms — emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into whichthe storm called Life must hush at last — they came forward to raisethe father and daughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped tothe floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestleddown with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and her hairdrooping over him curtained him from the light.

«If, without disturbing him,» she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry ashe stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, «allcould be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from thevery door, he could be taken away — »

«But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?» asked Mr. Lorry.

«Morefit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful tohim.»

«Itis true,» said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. «Morethan that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of France.Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?»

«That’sbusiness,» said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice hismethodical manners; «and if business is to be done, I had better doit.»

«Thenbe so kind,» urged Miss Manette, «as to leave us here. You seehow composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave himwith me now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secureus from interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when youcome back, as quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take careof him until you return, and then we will remove him straight.»

BothMr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and infavour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only carriageand horses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as time pressed, for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastilydividing the business that was necessary to be done, and hurryingaway to do it.

Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on thehard ground close at the father’s side, and watched him. Thedarkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until alight gleamed through the chinks in the wall.

Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, andhad brought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers, breadand meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker’s bench (there wasnothing else in the garret but a pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorryroused the captive, and assisted him to his feet.

Nohuman intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in thescared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what had happened, whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether he knewthat he was free, were questions which no sagacity could have solved.They tried speaking to him; but, he was so confused, and so very slowto answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed forthe time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner ofoccasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had not been seenin him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of hisdaughter’s voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke.

Inthe submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, heate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on thecloak and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readilyresponded to his daughter’s drawing her arm through his, andtook — and kept — her hand in both his own.

Theybegan to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed manysteps of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at theroof and round at the walls.

«Youremember the place, my father? You remember coming up here?»

«Whatdid you say?»

But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if shehad repeated it.

«Remember? No, I don’t remember. It was so very long ago.»

Thathe had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from hisprison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter,«One Hundred and Five, North Tower;” and when he looked abouthim, it evidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had longencompassed him. On their reaching the courtyard he instinctivelyaltered his tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and whenthere was no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the openstreet, he dropped his daughter’s hand and clasped his head again.

Nocrowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of themany windows; not even a chance passerby was in the street. Anunnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was tobe seen, and that was Madame Defarge — who leaned against thedoor-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

Theprisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step by his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. MadameDefarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. Shequickly brought them down and handed them in; — and immediatelyafterwards leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

Defargegot upon the box, and gave the word «To the Barrier!» Thepostilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the feebleover-swinging lamps.

Underthe over-swinging lamps — swinging ever brighter in the betterstreets, and ever dimmer in the worse — and by lighted shops, gaycrowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors, to one of thecity gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there. «Yourpapers, travellers!» «See here then, Monsieur the Officer,«said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, «theseare the papers of monsieur inside, with the white head. They wereconsigned to me, with him, at the — » He dropped his voice, therewas a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them beinghanded into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected withthe arm looked, not an every day or an every night look, at monsieurwith the white head. «It is well. Forward!» from the uniform.«Adieu!» from Defarge. And so, under a short grove of feebler andfeebler over-swinging lamps, out under the great grove of stars.

Beneaththat arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from thislittle earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether theirrays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anythingis suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad and black.All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, they oncemore whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry — sitting opposite theburied man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powerswere for ever lost to him, and what were capable of restoration — theold inquiry:

«Ihope you care to be recalled to life?»

Andthe old answer:

«Ican’t say.»

Theend of the first book.

Tellson’sBank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the year onethousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, veryugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, inthe moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of itssmallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of itsincommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in thoseparticulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it wereless objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was no passivebelief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenientplaces of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted no embellishment.Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’ might; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven — !

Anyone of these partners would have disinherited his son on the questionof rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the House was much on apar with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons forsuggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highlyobjectionable, but were only the more respectable.

Thusit had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfectionof inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacywith a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s down twosteps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with twolittle counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as ifthe wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by thedingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mudfrom Fleet-street, and which were made the dingier by their own ironbars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your businessnecessitated your seeing «the House,» you were put into a speciesof Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspentlife, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and youcould hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money came outof, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flewup your nose and down your throat when they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they were fast decomposinginto rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the neighbouringcesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good polish in a dayor two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms made ofkitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of theirparchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of familypapers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a greatdining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in theyear one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters writtento you by your old love, or by your little children, were but newlyreleased from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by theheads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocityworthy of Abyssinia or Ashantee.

Butindeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in voguewith all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson’s.Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad notewas put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; theholder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was putto Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the soundersof three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were putto Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention — itmight almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly thereverse — but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of eachparticular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be lookedafter. Thus, Tellson’s, in its day, like greater places ofbusiness, its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if theheads laid low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead ofbeing privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded whatlittle light the ground floor had, in a rather significant manner.

Crampedin all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the oldestof men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young maninto Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he wasold. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had thefull Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was hepermitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, andcasting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of theestablishment.

OutsideTellson’s — never by any means in it, unless called in — was anodd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as thelive sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: agrisly urchin of twelve, who was his express image. People understoodthat Tellson’s, in a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. Thehouse had always tolerated some person in that capacity, and time andtide had drifted this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works ofdarkness, in the easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he hadreceived the added appellation of Jerry.

Thescene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley, Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy Marchmorning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncherhimself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from theinvention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name uponit.)

Mr.Cruncher’s apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and werebut two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in itmight be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early asit was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed wasalready scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucersarranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very cleanwhite cloth was spread.

Mr.Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin athome. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll andsurge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hairlooking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:

«Bustme, if she ain’t at it agin!»

Awoman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in acorner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she wasthe person referred to.

«What!«said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. «You’re at itagin, are you?»

Afterhailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at thewoman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the oddcircumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher’s domestic economy, that, whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, heoften got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay.

«What,«said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing hismark — «what are you up to, Aggerawayter?»

«Iwas only saying my prayers.»

«Sayingyour prayers! You’re a nice woman! What do you mean by floppingyourself down and praying agin me?»

«Iwas not praying against you; I was praying for you.»

«Youweren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the liberty with. Here! your mother’s a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin yourfather’s prosperity. You’ve got a dutiful mother, you have, myson. You’ve got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going andflopping herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may besnatched out of the mouth of her only child.»

MasterCruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning tohis mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personalboard.

«Andwhat do you suppose, you conceited female,» said Mr. Cruncher, withunconscious inconsistency, «that the worth of your prayersmay be? Name the price that you put your prayersat!»

«Theyonly come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than that.»

«Worthno more than that,» repeated Mr. Cruncher. «They ain’t worthmuch, then. Whether or no, I won’t be prayed agin, I tell you. Ican’t afford it. I’m not a going to be made unluckyby your sneaking. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husbandand child, and not in opposition to ’em. If I had had any but aunnat’ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ralmother, I might have made some money last week instead of beingcounter-prayed and countermined and religiously circumwented into theworst of luck. B-u-u-ust me!» said Mr. Cruncher, who all this timehad been putting on his clothes, «if I ain’t, what with piety andone blowed thing and another, been choused this last week into as badluck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with! YoungJerry, dress yourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eyeupon your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of moreflopping, give me a call. For, I tell you,» here he addressed hiswife once more, «I won’t be gone agin, in this manner. I am asrickety as a hackney-coach, I’m as sleepy as laudanum, my lines isstrained to that degree that I shouldn’t know, if it wasn’t forthe pain in ’em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I’mnone the better for it in pocket; and it’s my suspicion that you’vebeen at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the betterfor it in pocket, and I won’t put up with it, Aggerawayter, andwhat do you say now!»

Growling, in addition, such phrases as «Ah! yes! You’re religious, too. Youwouldn’t put yourself in opposition to the interests of yourhusband and child, would you? Not you!» and throwing off othersarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr.Cruncher betook himself to his boot-cleaning and his generalpreparation for business. In the meantime, his son, whose head wasgarnished with tenderer spikes, and whose young eyes stood close byone another, as his father’s did, kept the required watch upon hismother. He greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals, by dartingout of his sleeping closet, where he made his toilet, with asuppressed cry of «You are going to flop, mother. — Halloa, father!» and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in againwith an undutiful grin.

Mr.Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he came to hisbreakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying grace with particularanimosity.

«Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again?»

Hiswife explained that she had merely «asked a blessing.»

«Don’tdo it!» said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expectedto see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife’spetitions. «I ain’t a going to be blest out of house and home. Iwon’t have my wittles blest off my table. Keep still!»

Exceedinglyred-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party whichhad taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried hisbreakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footedinmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o’clock he smoothed his ruffledaspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an exterioras he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to theoccupation of the day.

Itcould scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favouritedescription of himself as «a honest tradesman.» His stockconsisted of a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cutdown, which stool, young Jerry, walking at his father’s side, carried every morning to beneath the banking-house window that wasnearest Temple Bar: where, with the addition of the first handful ofstraw that could be gleaned from any passing vehicle to keep the coldand wet from the odd-job-man’s feet, it formed the encampment forthe day. On this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known toFleet-street and the Temple, as the Bar itself, — and was almost asin-looking.

Encampedat a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his three-corneredhat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson’s, Jerry tookup his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry standingby him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to inflictbodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing boyswho were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning trafficin Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as thetwo eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair ofmonkeys. The resemblance was not lessened by the accidentalcircumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while thetwinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful ofhim as of everything else in Fleet-street.

Thehead of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson’sestablishment was put through the door, and the word was given:

«Porterwanted!»

«Hooray, father! Here’s an early job to begin with!»

Havingthus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on thestool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his fatherhad been chewing, and cogitated.

«Al-waysrusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!» muttered young Jerry. «Wheredoes my father get all that iron rust from? He don’t get no ironrust here!»

Youknow the Old Bailey well, no doubt?» said one of the oldest ofclerks to Jerry the messenger.

«Ye-es, sir,» returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. «I do knowthe Bailey.»

«Justso. And you know Mr. Lorry.»

«Iknow Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Muchbetter,» said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at theestablishment in question, «than I, as a honest tradesman, wish toknow the Bailey.»

«Verywell. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show thedoor-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in.»

«Intothe court, sir?»

«Intothe court.»

Mr.Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, andto interchange the inquiry, «What do you think of this?»

«AmI to wait in the court, sir?» he asked, as the result of thatconference.

«Iam going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry’sattention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain there until he wants you.»

«Isthat all, sir?»

«That’sall. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him youare there.»

Asthe ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, Mr.Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to theblotting-paper stage, remarked:

«Isuppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning?»

«Treason!»

«That’squartering,» said Jerry. «Barbarous!»

«Itis the law,» remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprisedspectacles upon him. «It is the law.»

«It’shard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard enough to killhim, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.»

«Notat all,» retained the ancient clerk. «Speak well of the law. Takecare of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law totake care of itself. I give you that advice.»

«It’sthe damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,» said Jerry. «Ileave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.»

«Well, well,» said the old clerk; «we all have our various ways ofgaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us havedry ways. Here is the letter. Go along.»

Jerrytook the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internaldeference than he made an outward show of, «You are a lean old one, too,» made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of hisdestination, and went his way.

Theyhanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate hadnot obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery andvillainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that cameinto court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from thedock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench.It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cappronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, and evendied before him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind ofdeadly inn-yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, incarts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, andshaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and sodesirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, forthe pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment ofwhich no one could foresee the extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to beholdin action; also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, anotherfragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the mostfrightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven.Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustrationof the precept, that «Whatever is is right;” an aphorism thatwould be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesomeconsequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.

Makinghis way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this hideousscene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his wayquietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed inhis letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see theplay at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play inBedlam — only the former entertainment was much the dearer.Therefore, all the Old Bailey doors were well guarded — except, indeed, the social doors by which the criminals got there, and thosewere always left wide open.

Aftersome delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a verylittle way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself intocourt.

«What’son?» he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next to.

«Nothingyet.»

«What’scoming on?»

«TheTreason case.»

«Thequartering one, eh?»

«Ah!«returned the man, with a relish; «he’ll be drawn on a hurdle tobe half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down and sliced before hisown face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while helooks on, and then his head will be chopped off, and he’ll be cutinto quarters. That’s the sentence.»

«Ifhe’s found Guilty, you mean to say?» Jerry added, by way ofproviso.

«Oh! they’ll find him guilty,» said the other. «Don’t you beafraid of that.»

Mr.Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom hesaw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorrysat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wiggedgentleman, the prisoner’s counsel, who had a great bundle of papersbefore him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with hishands in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher lookedat him then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceilingof the court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin andsigning with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, whohad stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat downagain.

«What’s he gotto do with the case?» asked the man he had spoken with.

«Blestif I know,» said Jerry.

«Whathave you gotto do with it, then, if a person may inquire?»

«Blestif I know that either,» said Jerry.

Theentrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling downin the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became thecentral point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar.

Everybodypresent, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled at him, likea sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars andcorners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows stood up, notto miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid theirhands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of him — stood a-tiptoe, got uponledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him.Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spikedwall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breathof a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to minglewith the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and whatnot, that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windowsbehind him in an impure mist and rain.

Theobject of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of aboutfive-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheekand a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He wasplainly dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which waslong and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; moreto be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mindwill express itself through any covering of the body, so the palenesswhich his situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quiteself-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet.

Thesort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, wasnot a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a lesshorrible sentence — had there been a chance of any one of its savagedetails being spared — by just so much would he have lost in hisfascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefullymangled, was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be sobutchered and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss thevarious spectators put upon the interest, according to their severalarts and powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish.

Silencein the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to anindictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for thathe was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and soforth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on diversoccasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the FrenchKing, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between thedominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the saidFrench Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, andso forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America.This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more spiky as thelaw terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and soarrived circuitously at the understanding that the aforesaid, andover and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood there before himupon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and that Mr.Attorney-General was making ready to speak.

Theaccused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched fromthe situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet andattentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest; andstood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, socomposedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs withwhich it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs andsprinkled with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaolfever.

Overthe prisoner’s head there was a mirror, to throw the light downupon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected init, and had passed from its surface and this earth’s together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would havebeen, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, asthe ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of theinfamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may have struckthe prisoner’s mind. Be that as it may, a change in his positionmaking him conscious of a bar of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his face flushed, and his right hand pushedthe herbs away.

Ithappened, that the action turned his face to that side of the courtwhich was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat, inthat corner of the Judge’s bench, two persons upon whom his lookimmediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing ofhis aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned tothem.

Thespectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more thantwenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a veryremarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of hishair, and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an activekind, but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was uponhim, he looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and brokenup — as it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter — hebecame a handsome man, not past the prime of life.

Hisdaughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat byhim, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, inher dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Herforehead had been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror andcompassion that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This hadbeen so very noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, thatstarers who had had no pity for him were touched by her; and thewhisper went about, «Who are they?»

Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about him hadpressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and fromhim it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it gotto Jerry:

«Witnesses.»

«Forwhich side?»

«Against.»

«Againstwhat side?»

«Theprisoner’s.»

TheJudge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose lifewas in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grindthe axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold.

Mr.Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the prisoner beforethem, though young in years, was old in the treasonable practiceswhich claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence withthe public enemy was not a correspondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or even of last year, or of the year before. That, it was certain theprisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing andrepassing between France and England, on secret business of which hecould give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature oftraitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the realwickedness and guilt of his business might have remainedundiscovered. That Providence, however, had put it into the heart ofa person who was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out thenature of the prisoner’s schemes, and, struck with horror, todisclose them to his Majesty’s Chief Secretary of State and mosthonourable Privy Council. That, this patriot would be produced beforethem. That, his position and attitude were, on the whole, sublime.That, he had been the prisoner’s friend, but, at once in anauspicious and an evil hour detecting his infamy, had resolved toimmolate the traitor he could no longer cherish in his bosom, on thesacred altar of his country. That, if statues were decreed inBritain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public benefactors, thisshining citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as they were notso decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue, as had beenobserved by the poets (in many passages which he well knew the jurywould have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues; whereat thejury’s countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that they knewnothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; moreespecially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country.That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witnessfor the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, hadcommunicated itself to the prisoner’s servant, and had engenderedin him a holy determination to examine his master’s table-drawersand pockets, and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to hear some disparagement attempted of this admirableservant; but that, in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr.Attorney-General’s) brothers and sisters, and honoured him morethan his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) father and mother. That, hecalled with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That, theevidence of these two witnesses, coupled with the documents of theirdiscovering that would be produced, would show the prisoner to havebeen furnished with lists of his Majesty’s forces, and of theirdisposition and preparation, both by sea and land, and would leave nodoubt that he had habitually conveyed such information to a hostilepower. That, these lists could not be proved to be in the prisoner’shandwriting; but that it was all the same; that, indeed, it wasrather the better for the prosecution, as showing the prisoner to beartful in his precautions. That, the proof would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged in these perniciousmissions, within a few weeks before the date of the very first actionfought between the British troops and the Americans. That, for thesereasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they were), andbeing a responsible jury (as they knew they were),must positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their headsupon their pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of theirwives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they never couldendure the notion of their children laying their heads upon theirpillows; in short, that there never more could be, for them ortheirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless theprisoner’s head was taken off. That head Mr. Attorney-Generalconcluded by demanding of them, in the name of everything he couldthink of with a round turn in it, and on the faith of his solemnasseveration that he already considered the prisoner as good as deadand gone.

Whenthe Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if a cloudof great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in anticipationof what he was soon to become. When toned down again, theunimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box.

Mr.Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, examined thepatriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soulwas exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had described it to be — perhaps, if it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noblebosom of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, butthat the wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not farfrom Mr. Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wiggedgentleman sitting opposite, still looking at the ceiling of thecourt.

Hadhe ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. Whatdid he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn’tprecisely remember where it was. What was it? No business ofanybody’s. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distantrelation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not.Never in a debtors’ prison? Didn’t see what that had to do withit. Never in a debtors’ prison? — Come, once again. Never? Yes. Howmany times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of whatprofession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick onthe top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kickedon that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect wassaid by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it wasnot true. Swear it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating atplay? Never. Ever live by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him? No. Was notthis intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a very slight one, forcedupon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw theprisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No. Had not procured them himself, for instance? No. Expect to getanything by this evidence? No. Not in regular government pay andemployment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheerpatriotism? None whatever.

Thevirtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at agreat rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith andsimplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard theCalais packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner hadengaged him. He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellowas an act of charity — never thought of such a thing. He began tohave suspicions of the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soonafterwards. In arranging his clothes, while travelling, he had seensimilar lists to these in the prisoner’s pockets, over and overagain. He had taken these lists from the drawer of the prisoner’sdesk. He had not put them there first. He had seen the prisoner showthese identical lists to French gentlemen at Calais, and similarlists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and Boulogne. He loved hiscountry, and couldn’t bear it, and had given information. He hadnever been suspected of stealing a silver tea-pot; he had beenmaligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it turned out to be only aplated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight years; thatwas merely a coincidence. He didn’t call it a particularly curiouscoincidence; most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it acurious coincidence that true patriotism was his onlymotive too. He was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him.

Theblue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. JarvisLorry.

«Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s bank?»

«Iam.»

«Ona certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred andseventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London andDover by the mail?»

«Itdid.»

«Werethere any other passengers in the mail?»

«Two.»

«Didthey alight on the road in the course of the night?»

«Theydid.»

«Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?»

«Icannot undertake to say that he was.»

«Doeshe resemble either of these two passengers?»

«Bothwere so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all soreserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.»

«Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up asthose two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and statureto render it unlikely that he was one of them?»

«No.»

«Youwill not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?»

«No.»

«Soat least you say he may have been one of them?»

«Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been — like myself — timorousof highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous air.»

«Didyou ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry?»

«Icertainly have seen that.»

«Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to yourcertain knowledge, before?»

«Ihave.»

«When?»

«Iwas returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, theprisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and madethe voyage with me.»

«Atwhat hour did he come on board?»

«Ata little after midnight.»

«Inthe dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board atthat untimely hour?»

«Hehappened to be the only one.»

«Nevermind about „happening,“ Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger whocame on board in the dead of the night?»

«Hewas.»

«Wereyou travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion?»

«Withtwo companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here.»

«Theyare here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner?»

«Hardlyany. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and Ilay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore.»

«MissManette!»

Theyoung lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were nowturned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm.

«MissManette, look upon the prisoner.»

Tobe confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, wasfar more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all thecrowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled outthe herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; andhis efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips fromwhich the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies wasloud again.

«MissManette, have you seen the prisoner before?»

«Yes, sir.»

«Where?»

«Onboard of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the sameoccasion.»

«Youare the young lady just now referred to?»

«O! most unhappily, I am!»

Theplaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voiceof the Judge, as he said something fiercely: «Answer the questionsput to you, and make no remark upon them.»

«MissManette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passageacross the Channel?»

«Yes, sir.»

«Recallit.»

Inthe midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: «When thegentleman came on board — »

«Doyou mean the prisoner?» inquired the Judge, knitting his brows.

«Yes, my Lord.»

«Thensay the prisoner.»

«Whenthe prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father,» turning hereyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, «was much fatigued andin a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I wasafraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him onthe deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side totake care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but wefour. The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me howI could shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than Ihad done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding howthe wind would set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my father’s state, and I am sure he felt it. That was the manner of our beginning tospeak together.»

«Letme interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone?»

«No.»

«Howmany were with him?»

«TwoFrench gentlemen.»

«Hadthey conferred together?»

«Theyhad conferred together until the last moment, when it was necessaryfor the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat.»

«Hadany papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists?»

«Somepapers had been handed about among them, but I don’t know whatpapers.»

«Likethese in shape and size?»

«Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood whispering very nearto me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have thelight of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, andthey spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw onlythat they looked at papers.»

«Now, to the prisoner’s conversation, Miss Manette.»

«Theprisoner was as open in his confidence with me — which arose out ofmy helpless situation — as he was kind, and good, and useful to myfather. I hope,» bursting into tears, «I may not repay him bydoing him harm to-day.»

Buzzingfrom the blue-flies.

«MissManette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you givethe evidence which it is your duty to give — which you must give — andwhich you cannot escape from giving — with great unwillingness, he isthe only person present in that condition. Please to go on.»

«Hetold me that he was travelling on business of a delicate anddifficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that hewas therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that thisbusiness had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, atintervals, take him backwards and forwards between France and Englandfor a long time to come.»

«Didhe say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular.»

«Hetried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on England’spart. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George Washingtonmight gain almost as great a name in history as George the Third. Butthere was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said laughingly, and to beguile the time.»

Anystrongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in ascene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will beunconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfullyanxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses whenshe stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect uponthe counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the sameexpression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a greatmajority of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflectingthe witness, when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at thattremendous heresy about George Washington.

Mr.Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed itnecessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the younglady’s father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly.

«DoctorManette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?»

«Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or threeyears and a half ago.»

«Canyou identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, orspeak to his conversation with your daughter?»

«Sir, I can do neither.»

«Isthere any particular and special reason for your being unable to doeither?»

Heanswered, in a low voice, «There is.»

«Hasit been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, withouttrial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette?»

Heanswered, in a tone that went to every heart, «A longimprisonment.»

«Wereyou newly released on the occasion in question?»

«Theytell me so.»

«Haveyou no remembrance of the occasion?»

“None.My mind is a blank, from some time — I cannot even say what time — whenI employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the time whenI found myself living in London with my dear daughter here. She hadbecome familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. Ihave no remembrance of the process.»

Mr.Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat downtogether.

Asingular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in handbeing to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotteruntracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November fiveyears ago, and got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at aplace where he did not remain, but from which he travelled back somedozen miles or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collectedinformation; a witness was called to identify him as having been atthe precise time required, in the coffee-room of an hotel in thatgarrison-and-dockyard town, waiting for another person. Theprisoner’s counsel was cross-examining this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time been looking at theceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper inthe next pause, the counsel looked with great attention and curiosityat the prisoner.

«Yousay again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?»

Thewitness was quite sure.

«Didyou ever see anybody very like the prisoner?»

Notso like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken.

«Lookwell upon that gentleman, my learned friend there,» pointing to himwho had tossed the paper over, «and then look well upon theprisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?»

Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner’s counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied tomy Lord, no; but he would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to useless lumber.

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingersin his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the jury, like a compact suitof clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas — which he certainly didlook rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, becausesome family affairs in France, he being of French extraction, didrequire his making those passages across the Channel — though whatthose affairs were, a consideration for others who were near and dearto him, forbade him, even for his life, to disclose. How the evidencethat had been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose anguishin giving it they had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the merelittle innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to pass betweenany young gentleman and young lady so thrown together; — with theexception of that reference to George Washington, which wasaltogether too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any otherlight than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in thegovernment to break down in this attempt to practise for popularityon the lowest national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr.Attorney-General had made the most of it; how, nevertheless, itrested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous character ofevidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the StateTrials of this country were full. But, there my Lord interposed (withas grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could notsit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions.

Mr.Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next toattend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole suit of clothesMr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsadand Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but onthe whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes forthe prisoner.

Andnow, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again.

Mr.Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glancedanxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose fromhis seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattendedby a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state wasfeverish; this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half offhim, his untidy wig put on just as it had happened to light on hishead after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on theceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless inhis demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but sodiminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookers-on, taking note of himnow, said to one another they would hardly have thought the two wereso alike. Mr. Cruncher made the observation to his next neighbour, and added, «I’d hold half a guinea that he don’tget no law-work to do. Don’t look like the sort of one to get any, do he?»

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than heappeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s head dropped uponher father’s breast, he was the first to see it, and to sayaudibly: «Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman totake her out. Don’t you see she will fall!»

Therewas much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much sympathywith her father. It had evidently been a great distress to him, tohave the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown stronginternal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering orbrooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a heavycloud, ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned backand paused a moment, spoke, through their foreman.

Theywere not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with GeorgeWashington on his mind) showed some surprise that they were notagreed, but signified his pleasure that they should retire underwatch and ward, and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in the court were now being lighted. It began to berumoured that the jury would be out a long while. The spectatorsdropped off to get refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the backof the dock, and sat down.

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry: who, in the slackenedinterest, could easily get near him.

«Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don’t be a momentbehind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. Youare the quickest messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar longbefore I can.»

Jerryhad just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it inacknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton cameup at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm.

«Howis the young lady?»

«Sheis greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and shefeels the better for being out of court.»

«I’lltell the prisoner so. It won’t do for a respectable bank gentlemanlike you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know.»

Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point inhis mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar. Theway out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, alleyes, ears, and spikes.

«Mr. Darnay!»

Theprisoner came forward directly.

«Youwill naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. Shewill do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation.»

«Iam deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her sofor me, with my fervent acknowledgments?»

«Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it.»

Mr.Carton’s manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against thebar.

«Ido ask it. Accept my cordial thanks.»

«What,«said Carton, still only half turned towards him, «do you expect, Mr. Darnay?»

«Theworst.»

«It’sthe wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think theirwithdrawing is in your favour.»

Loiteringon the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no more: butleft them — so like each other in feature, so unlike each other inmanner — standing side by side, both reflected in the glass abovethem.

Anhour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and-rascal crowdedpassages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale.The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after takingthat refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and arapid tide of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along with them.

«Jerry! Jerry!» Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he gotthere.

«Here, sir! It’s a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir!»

Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. «Quick! Have you gotit?»

«Yes, sir.»

Hastilywritten on the paper was the word «Acquitted.»

«Ifyou had sent the message, „Recalled to Life,“ again,» mutteredJerry, as he turned, «I should have known what you meant, thistime.»

Hehad no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for, the crowd came pouring outwith a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzzswept into the street as if the baffled blue-flies were dispersing insearch of other carrion.

Fromthe dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of thehuman stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, thesolicitor for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stoodgathered round Mr. Charles Darnay — just released — congratulatinghim on his escape from death.

Itwould have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise inDoctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, theshoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked athim twice, without looking again: even though the opportunity ofobservation had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low gravevoice, and to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, withoutany apparent reason. While one external cause, and that a referenceto his long lingering agony, would always — as on the trial — evokethis condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its natureto arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensibleto those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadowof the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when thesubstance was three hundred miles away.

Onlyhis daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from hismind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond hismisery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of hervoice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strongbeneficial influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few and slight, and she believed them over.

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turnedto Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of littlemore than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had apushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) intocompanies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering hisway up in life.

Hestill had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at hislate client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorryclean out of the group: «I am glad to have brought you off withhonour, Mr. Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less likely to succeed on that account.»

«Youhave laid me under an obligation to you for life — in two senses,«said his late client, taking his hand.

«Ihave done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good asanother man’s, I believe.»

Itclearly being incumbent on some one to say, «Much better,» Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with theinterested object of squeezing himself back again.

«Youthink so?» said Mr. Stryver. «Well! you have been present allday, and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too.»

«Andas such,» quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law hadnow shouldered back into the group, just as he had previouslyshouldered him out of it — «as such I will appeal to DoctorManette, to break up this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had a terrible day, we are wornout.»

«Speakfor yourself, Mr. Lorry,» said Stryver; «I have a night’s workto do yet. Speak for yourself.»

«Ispeak for myself,» answered Mr. Lorry, «and for Mr. Darnay, andfor Miss Lucie, and — Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for usall?» He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at herfather.

Hisface had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, noteven unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him histhoughts had wandered away.

«Myfather,» said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his.

Heslowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her.

«Shallwe go home, my father?»

Witha long breath, he answered «Yes.»

Thefriends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under theimpression — which he himself had originated — that he would not bereleased that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in thepassages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning’sinterest of gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it. Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, LucieManette passed into the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and thefather and daughter departed in it.

Mr.Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back tothe robing-room. Another person, who had not joined the group, orinterchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaningagainst the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolledout after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. Henow stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon thepavement.

«So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now?»

Nobodyhad made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part in the day’sproceedings; nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and was none thebetter for it in appearance.

«Ifyou knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when thebusiness mind is divided between good-natured impulse and businessappearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay.»

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, «You have mentioned that before, sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We have to think of the House more than ourselves.»

«I know, I know,«rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. «Don’t be nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt: better, I dare say.»

«Andindeed, sir,» pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, «I really don’tknow what you have to do with the matter. If you’ll excuse me, asvery much your elder, for saying so, I really don’t know that it isyour business.»

«Business! Bless you, I haveno business,» said Mr. Carton.

«Itis a pity you have not, sir.»

«Ithink so, too.»

«Ifyou had,» pursued Mr. Lorry, «perhaps you would attend to it.»

«Lordlove you, no! — I shouldn’t,» said Mr. Carton.

«Well, sir!» cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference,«business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its silences andimpediments, Mr. Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows howto make allowance for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, Godbless you, sir! I hope you have been this day preserved for aprosperous and happy life. — Chair there!»

Perhapsa little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. Lorrybustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson’s. Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughedthen, and turned to Darnay:

«Thisis a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must be astrange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart onthese street stones?»

«Ihardly seem yet,» returned Charles Darnay, «to belong to thisworld again.»

«Idon’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty faradvanced on your way to another. You speak faintly.»

«Ibegin to think I am faint.»

«Thenwhy the devil don’t you dine? I dined, myself, while thosenumskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to — this, or some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at.»

Drawinghis arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill toFleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, theywere shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soonrecruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: whileCarton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separatebottle of port before him, and his fully half-insolent manner uponhim.

«Doyou feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay?»

«Iam frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so farmended as to feel that.»

«Itmust be an immense satisfaction!»

Hesaid it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was a largeone.

«Asto me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it.It has no good in it for me — except wine like this — nor I for it.So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to thinkwe are not much alike in any particular, you and I.»

Confusedby the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with thisDouble of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay wasat a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all.

«Nowyour dinner is done,» Carton presently said, «why don’t youcall a health, Mr. Darnay; why don’t you give your toast?»

«Whathealth? What toast?»

«Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I’llswear it’s there.»

«MissManette, then!»

«MissManette, then!»

Lookinghis companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton flunghis glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered topieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another.

«That’sa fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!» hesaid, filling his new goblet.

Aslight frown and a laconic «Yes,» were the answer.

«That’sa fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be the object of suchsympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?»

AgainDarnay answered not a word.

«Shewas mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Notthat she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was.»

Theallusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeablecompanion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the strait ofthe day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him forit.

«Ineither want any thanks, nor merit any,» was the carelessrejoinder. «It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don’tknow why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you aquestion.»

«Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.»

«Doyou think I particularly like you?»

«Really, Mr. Carton,» returned the other, oddly disconcerted, «I have notasked myself the question.»

«Butask yourself the question now.»

«Youhave acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.»

«I don’tthink I do,» said Carton. «I begin to have a very good opinion ofyour understanding.»

«Nevertheless,«pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, «there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our parting withoutill-blood on either side.»

Cartonrejoining, «Nothing in life!» Darnay rang. «Do you call thewhole reckoning?» said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative,«Then bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come andwake me at ten.»

Thebill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of athreat of defiance in his manner, and said, «A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think I am drunk?»

«Ithink you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.»

«Think? You know I have been drinking.»

«SinceI must say so, I know it.»

«Thenyou shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I carefor no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.»

«Muchto be regretted. You might have used your talents better.»

«Maybe so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don’t let your sober face elate you, however; you don’t know what it may come to. Good night!»

Whenhe was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to aglass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely init.

«Doyou particularly like the man?» he muttered, at his own image; «whyshould you particularly like a man who resembles you? There isnothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What achange you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you mighthave been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked atby those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated faceas he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate thefellow.»

Heresorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a fewminutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling overthe table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down uponhim.

Thosewere drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is theimprovement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderatestatement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man wouldswallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to hisreputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, aridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law wascertainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalianpropensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering hisway to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in thisparticular, any more than in the drier parts of the legal race.

Afavourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver hadbegun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on whichhe mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon theirfavourite, specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itselftowards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King’sBench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing itsway at the sun from among a rank garden-full of flaring companions.

Ithad once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glibman, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not thatfaculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which isamong the most striking and necessary of the advocate’saccomplishments. But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as tothis. The more business he got, the greater his power seemed to growof getting at its pith and marrow; and however late at night he satcarousing with Sydney Carton, he always had his points at hisfingers’ ends in the morning.

SydneyCarton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver’s greatally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term andMichaelmas, might have floated a king’s ship. Stryver never had acase in hand, anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in hispockets, staring at the ceiling of the court; they went the sameCircuit, and even there they prolonged their usual orgies late intothe night, and Carton was rumoured to be seen at broad day, goinghome stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissipatedcat. At last, it began to get about, among such as were interested inthe matter, that although Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he wasan amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service toStryver in that humble capacity.

«Teno’clock, sir,» said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged towake him — «ten o’clock, sir.»

«What’s thematter?»

«Teno’clock, sir.»

«Whatdo you mean? Ten o’clock at night?»

«Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you.»

«Oh! I remember. Very well, very well.»

Aftera few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterouslycombated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he gotup, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King’sBench-walk and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers.

TheStryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gonehome, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slipperson, and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greaterease. He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about theeyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from theportrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under variousdisguises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age.

«Youare a little late, Memory,» said Stryver.

«Aboutthe usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour later.»

Theywent into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and inthe midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wineupon it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons.

«Youhave had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.»

«Twoto-night, I think. I have been dining with the day’s client; orseeing him dine — it’s all one!»

«Thatwas a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon theidentification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you?»

«Ithought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should havebeen much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck.»

Mr.Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch.

«Youand your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work.»

Sullenlyenough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a towel ortwo. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing themout, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, satdown at the table, and said, «Now I am ready!»

«Notmuch boiling down to be done to-night, Memory,» said Mr. Stryver, gaily, as he looked among his papers.

«Howmuch?»

«Onlytwo sets of them.»

«Giveme the worst first.»

«Therethey are, Sydney. Fire away!»

Thelion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of thedrinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn tableproper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses readyto his hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint, buteach in a different way; the lion for the most part reclining withhis hands in his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionallyflirting with some lighter document; the jackal, with knitted browsand intent face, so deep in his task, that his eyes did not evenfollow the hand he stretched out for his glass — which often gropedabout, for a minute or more, before it found the glass for his lips.Two or three times, the matter in hand became so knotty, that thejackal found it imperative on him to get up, and steep his towelsanew. From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, he returned withsuch eccentricities of damp headgear as no words can describe; whichwere made the more ludicrous by his anxious gravity.

Atlength the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, andproceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackalassisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put hishands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackalthen invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a freshapplication to his head, and applied himself to the collection of asecond meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three in the morning.

«Andnow we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,» said Mr.Stryver.

Thejackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steamingagain, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied.

«Youwere very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnessesto-day. Every question told.»

«Ialways am sound; am I not?»

«Idon’t gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch toit and smooth it again.»

Witha deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied.

«Theold Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,» said Stryver, noddinghis head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past,«the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now inspirits and now in despondency!»

«Ah!«returned the other, sighing: «yes! The same Sydney, with the sameluck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did myown.»

«Andwhy not?»

«Godknows. It was my way, I suppose.»

Hesat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out beforehim, looking at the fire.

«Carton,«said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, as ifthe fire-grate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour wasforged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old SydneyCarton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, «yourway is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look at me.»

«Oh, botheration!» returned Sydney, with a lighter and moregood-humoured laugh, «don’t you bemoral!»

«Howhave I done what I have done?» said Stryver; «how do I do what Ido?»

«Partlythrough paying me to help you, I suppose. But it’s not worth yourwhile to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind.»

«Ihad to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?»

«Iwas not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,» saidCarton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed.

«BeforeShrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,» pursuedCarton, «you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen intomine. Even when we were fellow-students in the Student-Quarter ofParis, picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbsthat we didn’t get much good of, you were always somewhere, and Iwas always nowhere.»

«Andwhose fault was that?»

«Uponmy soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always drivingand riving and shouldering and passing, to that restless degree thatI had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It’s a gloomything, however, to talk about one’s own past, with the daybreaking. Turn me in some other direction before I go.»

«Wellthen! Pledge me to the pretty witness,» said Stryver, holding uphis glass. «Are you turned in a pleasant direction?»

Apparentlynot, for he became gloomy again.

«Prettywitness,» he muttered, looking down into his glass. «I have hadenough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who’s your prettywitness?»

«Thepicturesque doctor’s daughter, Miss Manette.»

«She pretty?»

«Isshe not?»

«No.»

«Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court!»

«Rotthe admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge ofbeauty? She was a golden-haired doll!»

«Doyou know, Sydney,» said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharpeyes, and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face: «do youknow, I rather thought, at the time, that you sympathised with thegolden-haired doll, and were quick to see what happened to thegolden-haired doll?»

«Quickto see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within ayard or two of a man’s nose, he can see it without aperspective-glass. I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I’llhave no more drink; I’ll get to bed.»

Whenhis host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to lighthim down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimywindows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, thedull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like alifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and roundbefore the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm thecity.

Wasteforces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still onhis way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in thewilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airygalleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens inwhich the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkledin his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamberin a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on aneglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man ofgood abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directedexercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensibleof the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

Thequiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner notfar from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday whenthe waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason, andcarried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where helived, on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapsesinto business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor’s friend, and the quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life.

Onthis certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in theafternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fineSundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor andLucie; secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomedto be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking outof window, and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because hehappened to have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew howthe ways of the Doctor’s household pointed to that time as a likelytime for solving them.

Aquainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to befound in London. There was no way through it, and the front windowsof the Doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista ofstreet that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were fewbuildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and forest-treesflourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in thenow vanished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated inSoho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parishlike stray paupers without a settlement; and there was many a goodsouth wall, not far off, on which the peaches ripened in theirseason.

Thesummer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier partof the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it intoa glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, awonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from the ragingstreets.

Thereought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and therewas. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house, whereseveral callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof littlewas audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night.In a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where aplane-tree rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to bemade, and silver to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by somemysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of thefront hall — as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced asimilar conversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades, orof a lonely lodger rumoured to live up-stairs, or of a dimcoach-trimming maker asserted to have a counting-house below, wasever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coaton, traversed the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or adistant clink was heard across the courtyard, or a thump from thegolden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions required toprove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way from Sundaymorning unto Saturday night.

DoctorManette received such patients here as his old reputation, and itsrevival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him. Hisscientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conductingingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and he earned as much as he wanted.

Thesethings were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge, thoughts, andnotice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil house in thecorner, on the fine Sunday afternoon.

«DoctorManette at home?»

Expectedhome.

«MissLucie at home?»

Expectedhome.

«MissPross at home?»

Possiblyat home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to anticipateintentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the fact.

«AsI am at home myself,» said Mr. Lorry, «I’ll go upstairs.»

Althoughthe Doctor’s daughter had known nothing of the country of herbirth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability tomake much of little means, which is one of its most useful and mostagreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was setoff by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste andfancy, that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everythingin the rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangementof colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift intrifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at onceso pleasant in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, the very chairs andtables seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiar expressionwhich he knew so well by this time, whether he approved?

Therewere three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which theycommunicated being put open that the air might pass freely throughthem all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblancewhich he detected all around him, walked from one to another. Thefirst was the best room, and in it were Lucie’s birds, and flowers, and books, and desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; thesecond was the Doctor’s consulting-room, used also as thedining-room; the third, changingly speckled by the rustle of theplane-tree in the yard, was the Doctor’s bedroom, and there, in acorner, stood the disused shoemaker’s bench and tray of tools, muchas it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by thewine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris.

«Iwonder,» said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, «that hekeeps that reminder of his sufferings about him!»

«Andwhy wonder at that?» was the abrupt inquiry that made him start.

Itproceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whoseacquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and had since improved.

«Ishould have thought — » Mr. Lorry began.

«Pooh! You’d have thought!» said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off.

«Howdo you do?» inquired that lady then — sharply, and yet as if toexpress that she bore him no malice.

«Iam pretty well, I thank you,» answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness;«how are you?»

«Nothingto boast of,» said Miss Pross.

«Indeed?»

«Ah! indeed!» said Miss Pross. «I am very much put out about myLadybird.»

«Indeed?»

«Forgracious sake say something else besides „indeed,“ or you’llfidget me to death,» said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociatedfrom stature) was shortness.

«Really, then?» said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment.

«Really, is bad enough,» returned Miss Pross, «but better. Yes, I am verymuch put out.»

«MayI ask the cause?»

«Idon’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking after her,» said Miss Pross.

«Do dozenscome for that purpose?»

«Hundreds,«said Miss Pross.

Itwas characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before hertime and since) that whenever her original proposition wasquestioned, she exaggerated it.

«Dearme!» said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of.

«Ihave lived with the darling — or the darling has lived with me, andpaid me for it; which she certainly should never have done, you maytake your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myselfor her for nothing — since she was ten years old. And it’s reallyvery hard,» said Miss Pross.

Notseeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak thatwould fit anything.

«Allsorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, are always turning up,» said Miss Pross. «When you began it — »

«I beganit, Miss Pross?»

«Didn’tyou? Who brought her father to life?»

«Oh! If that wasbeginning it — » said Mr. Lorry.

«Itwasn’t ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hardenough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, exceptthat he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation onhim, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under anycircumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowdsand multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgivenhim), to take Ladybird’s affections away from me.»

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her bythis time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one ofthose unselfish creatures — found only among women — who will, forpure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youthwhen they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, toaccomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, tobright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives. He knewenough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better thanthe faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from anymercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, that in theretributive arrangements made by his own mind — we all make sucharrangements, more or less — he stationed Miss Pross much nearer tothe lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both byNature and Art, who had balances at Tellson’s.

«Therenever was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird,» said MissPross; «and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn’t made amistake in life.»

Hereagain: Mr. Lorry’s inquiries into Miss Pross’s personal historyhad established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartlessscoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as astake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty forevermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross’s fidelity ofbelief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in hisgood opinion of her.

«Aswe happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people ofbusiness,» he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room andhad sat down there in friendly relations, «let me ask you — doesthe Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemakingtime, yet?»

«Never.»

«Andyet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?»

«Ah!«returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. «But I don’t say he don’trefer to it within himself.»

«Doyou believe that he thinks of it much?»

«Ido,» said Miss Pross.

«Doyou imagine — » Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him upshort with:

«Neverimagine anything. Have no imagination at all.»

«Istand corrected; do you suppose — you go so far as to suppose, sometimes?»

«Nowand then,» said Miss Pross.

«Doyou suppose,» Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in hisbright eye, as it looked kindly at her, «that Doctor Manette hasany theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative tothe cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of hisoppressor?»

«Idon’t suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.»

«Andthat is — ?»

«Thatshe thinks he has.»

«Nowdon’t be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am amere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business.»

«Dull?«Miss Pross inquired, with placidity.

Ratherwishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, «No, no, no.Surely not. To return to business: — Is it not remarkable that DoctorManette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all wellassured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not saywith me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, andwe are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he isso devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don’t approach the topic with you, out ofcuriosity, but out of zealous interest.»

«Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad’s the best, you’ll tellme,» said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, «he isafraid of the whole subject.»

«Afraid?»

«It’splain enough, I should think, why he may be. It’s a dreadfulremembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Notknowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he maynever feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn’tmake the subject pleasant, I should think.»

It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. «True,«said he, «and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in mymind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our presentconfidence.»

«Can’tbe helped,» said Miss Pross, shaking her head. «Touch thatstring, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave italone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, hegets up in the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overheadthere, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room.Ladybird has learnt to know then that his mind is walking up anddown, walking up and down, in his old prison. She hurries to him, andthey go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, untilhe is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason of hisrestlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him.In silence they go walking up and down together, walking up and downtogether, till her love and company have brought him to himself.»

NotwithstandingMiss Pross’s denial of her own imagination, there was a perceptionof the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea, in herrepetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified to herpossessing such a thing.

Thecorner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it hadbegun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that itseemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro hadset it going.

«Herethey are!» said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference; «andnow we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon!»

Itwas such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such apeculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fanciedthey would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, asthough the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never camewould be heard in their stead, and would die away for good when theyseemed close at hand. However, father and daughter did at lastappear, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them.

MissPross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, takingoff her darling’s bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching itup with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her richhair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her ownhair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darlingwas a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her, andprotesting against her taking so much trouble for her — which lastshe only dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, wouldhave retired to her own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasantsight too, looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoiltLucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them asMiss Pross had, and would have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his littlewig, and thanking his bachelor stars for having lighted him in hisdeclining years to a Home. But, no Hundreds of people came to see thesights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for the fulfilment of MissPross’s prediction.

Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of the littlehousehold, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, and alwaysacquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modestquality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in theircontrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could bebetter. Miss Pross’s friendship being of the thoroughly practicalkind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search ofimpoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, wouldimpart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons anddaughters of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that thewoman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her asquite a Sorceress, or Cinderella’s Godmother: who would send outfor a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and changethem into anything she pleased.

OnSundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor’s table, but on other dayspersisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lowerregions, or in her own room on the second floor — a blue chamber, towhich no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On thisoccasion, Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird’s pleasant face andpleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner wasvery pleasant, too.

Itwas an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that thewine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sitthere in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved abouther, they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the winedown for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry’s cup-bearer; and while they satunder the plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished.Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane-tree whispered to them in its own way above theirheads.

Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnaypresented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, buthe was only One.

DoctorManette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Prosssuddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, andretired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of thisdisorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, «a fit ofthe jerks.»

TheDoctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. Theresemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, andas they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he restinghis arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace thelikeness.

Hehad been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusualvivacity. «Pray, Doctor Manette,» said Mr. Darnay, as they satunder the plane-tree — and he said it in the natural pursuit of thetopic in hand, which happened to be the old buildings of London — «haveyou seen much of the Tower?»

«Lucieand I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of it, to know that it teems with interest; little more.»

«I havebeen there, as you remember,» said Darnay, with a smile, thoughreddening a little angrily, «in another character, and not in acharacter that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me acurious thing when I was there.»

«Whatwas that?» Lucie asked.

«Inmaking some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, whichhad been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of itsinner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved byprisoners — dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a cornerstone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have goneto execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were donewith some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand.At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefullyexamined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record orlegend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitlessguesses were made what the name could have been. At length, it wassuggested that the letters were not initials, but the completeword, DIG.The floor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, inthe earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, werefound the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a smallleathern case or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written willnever be read, but he had written something, and hidden it away tokeep it from the gaoler.»

«Myfather,» exclaimed Lucie, «you are ill!»

Hehad suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner andhis look quite terrified them all.

«No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and theymade me start. We had better go in.»

Herecovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in largedrops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But, he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had beentold of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as itturned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had beenupon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the CourtHouse.

Herecovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts ofhis business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was notmore steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to themthat he was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever wouldbe), and that the rain had startled him.

Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he madeonly Two.

Thenight was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors andwindows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table wasdone with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out intothe heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, andsome of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught themup to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings.

«Therain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,» said DoctorManette. «It comes slowly.»

«Itcomes surely,» said Carton.

Theyspoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in adark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.

Therewas a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to getshelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoesresounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not afootstep was there.

«Amultitude of people, and yet a solitude!» said Darnay, when theyhad listened for a while.

«Isit not impressive, Mr. Darnay?» asked Lucie. «Sometimes, I havesat here of an evening, until I have fancied — but even the shade ofa foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black andsolemn — »

«Letus shudder too. We may know what it is.»

«Itwill seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as weoriginate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I havesometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have madethe echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are comingby-and-bye into our lives.»

«Thereis a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so,«Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way.

Thefootsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and morerapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one within sight.

«Areall these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, orare we to divide them among us?»

«Idon’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but youasked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are tocome into my life, and my father’s.»

«Itake them into mine!» said Carton. «I askno questions and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearingdown upon us, Miss Manette, and I see them — by the Lightning.» Headded the last words, after there had been a vivid flash which hadshown him lounging in the window.

«AndI hear them!» he added again, after a peal of thunder. «Here theycome, fast, fierce, and furious!»

Itwas the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder andlightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not amoment’s interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after themoon rose at midnight.

Thegreat bell of Saint Paul’s was striking one in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, set forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitarypatches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it was usually performed a good two hours earlier.

«Whata night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry,» said Mr. Lorry, «tobring the dead out of their graves.»

«Inever see the night myself, master — nor yet I don’t expect to — whatwould do that,» answered Jerry.

«Goodnight, Mr. Carton,» said the man of business. «Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together!»

Perhaps.Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too.

Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightlyreception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in his innerroom, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to thecrowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur wasabout to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great manythings with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to berather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning’s chocolatecould not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without theaid of four strong men besides the Cook.

Yes.It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and theChief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in hispocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips. One lacqueycarried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milledand frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for thatfunction; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of thetwo gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible forMonseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolateand hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would havebeen the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignoblywaited on by only three men; he must have died of two.

Monseigneurhad been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and theGrand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at alittle supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and soimpressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera hadfar more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairsand state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstancefor France, as the like always is for all countries similarlyfavoured! — always was for England (by way of example), in theregretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it.

Monseigneurhad one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, tolet everything go on in its own way; of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go hisway — tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general andparticular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that theworld was made for them. The text of his order (altered from theoriginal by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: «The earth andthe fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.»

Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept intohis affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classesof affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As tofinances public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at allof them, and must consequently let them out to somebody who could; asto finances private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, andMonseigneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, wasgrowing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapestgarment she could wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a veryrich Farmer-General, poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carryingan appropriate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was nowamong the company in the outer rooms, much prostrated before bymankind — always excepting superior mankind of the blood ofMonseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked down upon him withthe loftiest contempt.

Asumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in hisstables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body-womenwaited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunderand forage where he could, the Farmer-General — howsoever hismatrimonial relations conduced to social morality — was at least thegreatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel ofMonseigneur that day.

For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned withevery device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time couldachieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with anyreference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (andnot so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), theywould have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business — if that couldhave been anybody’s business, at the house of Monseigneur. Militaryofficers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no ideaof a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazenecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loosetongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their severalcallings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but allnearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foistedon all public employments from which anything was to be got; thesewere to be told off by the score and the score. People notimmediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equallyunconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed intravelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no lessabundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies forimaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtlypatients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who haddiscovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which theState was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest toroot out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any earsthey could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. UnbelievingPhilosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and makingcard-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with UnbelievingChemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at thiswonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemenof the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time — and hasbeen since — to be known by its fruits of indifference to everynatural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary stateof exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had thesevarious notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur — forminga goodly half of the polite company — would have found it hard todiscover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, inher manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, exceptfor the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into thisworld — which does not go far towards the realisation of the name ofmother — there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant womenkept the unfashionable babies close, and brought them up, andcharming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty.

Theleprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendanceupon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptionalpeople who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in themthat things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way ofsetting them right, half of the half-dozen had become members of afantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then consideringwithin themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turncataleptic on the spot — thereby setting up a highly intelligiblefinger-post to the Future, for Monseigneur’s guidance. Besidesthese Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon about «the Centre of Truth: «holding that Man had got out of the Centre of Truth — which did notneed much demonstration — but had not got out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, andwas even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing ofspirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits wenton — and it did a world of good which never became manifest.

But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel ofMonseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had onlybeen ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have beeneternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up ofhair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the senseof smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. Theexquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendenttrinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fettersrang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and withthe rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter inthe air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away.

Dresswas the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all thingsin their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that wasnever to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, throughMonseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunalsof Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Balldescended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate «frizzled, powdered, in a gold-lacedcoat, pumps, and white silk stockings.» At the gallows and thewheel — the axe was a rarity — Monsieur Paris, as it was theepiscopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this daintydress. And who among the company at Monseigneur’s reception in thatseventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possiblydoubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the verystars out!

Monseigneurhaving eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, andissued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, whatservility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body andspirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven — which may have beenone among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur nevertroubled it.

Bestowinga word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happyslave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably passedthrough his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of Truth.There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due courseof time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolatesprites, and was seen no more.

Theshow being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soonbut one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under hisarm and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors onhis way out.

«Idevote you,» said this person, stopping at the last door on hisway, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, «to the Devil!»

Withthat, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken thedust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs.

Hewas a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, andwith a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; everyfeature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top ofeach nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only littlechange that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changingcolour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated andcontracted by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave alook of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examinedwith attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be foundin the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the facemade, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one.

Itsowner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, anddrove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception; hehad stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have beenwarmer in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, ratheragreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before hishorses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man droveas if he were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of theman brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master.The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deafcity and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, thefierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed themere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that tothink of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, thecommon wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as theycould.

Witha wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment ofconsideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriagedashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screamingbefore it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out ofits way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one ofits wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cryfrom a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.

Butfor the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not havestopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave theirwounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down ina hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles.

«Whathas gone wrong?» said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

Atall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet ofthe horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and wasdown in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

«Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!» said a ragged and submissive man, «it is achild.»

«Whydoes he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?»

«Excuseme, Monsieur the Marquis — it is a pity — yes.»

Thefountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall mansuddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on hissword-hilt.

«Killed!«shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at theirlength above his head, and staring at him. «Dead!»

Thepeople closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There wasnothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulnessand eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither didthe people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ranhis eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out oftheir holes.

Hetook out his purse.

«Itis extraordinary to me,» said he, «that you people cannot takecare of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is forever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses.See! Give him that.»

Hethrew out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the headscraned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell.The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, «Dead!»

Hewas arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the restmade way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon hisshoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, wheresome women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and movinggently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.

«Iknow all, I know all,» said the last comer. «Be a brave man, myGaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, thanto live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived anhour as happily?»

«Youare a philosopher, you there,» said the Marquis, smiling. «How dothey call you?»

«Theycall me Defarge.»

«Ofwhat trade?»

«Monsieurthe Marquis, vendor of wine.»

«Pickup that, philosopher and vendor of wine,» said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, «and spend it as you will. Thehorses there; are they right?»

Withoutdeigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur theMarquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away withthe air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his easewas suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, andringing on its floor.

«Hold!«said Monsieur the Marquis. «Hold the horses! Who threw that?»

Helooked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, amoment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face onthe pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him wasthe figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.

«Youdogs!» said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: «I would ride over any of youvery willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew whichrascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficientlynear it, he should be crushed under the wheels.»

Socowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience ofwhat such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, thatnot a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, notone. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and lookedthe Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; hiscontemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; andhe leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word «Go on!»

Hewas driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quicksuccession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, theComedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, camewhirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, andthey remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passingbetween them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind whichthey slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long agotaken up his bundle and bidden himself away with it, when the womenwho had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of theFancy Ball — when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of thefountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so muchlife in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tidewaited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in theirdark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all thingsran their course.

Abeautifullandscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. Patches ofpoor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimatenature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalenttendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly — a dejecteddisposition to give up, and wither away.

Monsieurthe Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have beenlighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged upa steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis wasno impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it wasoccasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control — thesetting sun.

Thesunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when itgained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. «Itwill die out,» said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands,«directly.»

Ineffect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When theheavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid downhill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glowdeparted quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, therewas no glow left when the drag was taken off.

But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village atthe bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, achurch-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with afortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkeningobjects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of onewho was coming near home.

Thevillage had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poorfountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too.All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at theirdoors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while manywere at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such smallyieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of whatmade them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax forthe church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were tobe paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription inthe little village, until the wonder was, that there was any villageleft unswallowed.

Fewchildren were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, theirchoice on earth was stated in the prospect — Life on the lowest termsthat could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill; orcaptivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag.

Heraldedby a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions’whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up inhis travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by thefountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow surefiling down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make themeagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survivethe truth through the best part of a hundred years.

Monsieurthe Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that droopedbefore him, as the like of himself had drooped before Monseigneur ofthe Court — only the difference was, that these faces drooped merelyto suffer and not to propitiate — when a grizzled mender of the roadsjoined the group.

«Bringme hither that fellow!» said the Marquis to the courier.

Thefellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed roundto look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Parisfountain.

«Ipassed you on the road?»

«Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road.»

«Comingup the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?»

«Monseigneur, it is true.»

«Whatdid you look at, so fixedly?»

«Monseigneur, I looked at the man.»

Hestooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under thecarriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage.

«Whatman, pig? And why look there?»

«Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe — the drag.»

«Who?«demanded the traveller.

«Monseigneur, the man.»

«Maythe Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You knowall the men of this part of the country. Who was he?»

«Yourclemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of allthe days of my life, I never saw him.»

«Swingingby the chain? To be suffocated?»

«Withyour gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. Hishead hanging over — like this!»

Heturned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with hisface thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recoveredhimself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow.

«Whatwas he like?»

«Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, white as aspectre, tall as a spectre!»

Thepicture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but alleyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur theMarquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on hisconscience.

«Truly, you did well,» said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that suchvermin were not to ruffle him, «to see a thief accompanying mycarriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle!»

MonsieurGabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at thisexamination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm inan official manner.

«Bah! Go aside!» said Monsieur Gabelle.

«Layhands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle.»

«Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders.»

«Didhe run away, fellow? — where is that Accursed?»

Theaccursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozenparticular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Somehalf-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, andpresented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis.

«Didthe man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?»

«Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as a personplunges into the river.»

«Seeto it, Gabelle. Go on!»

Thehalf-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky tosave their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, orthey might not have been so fortunate.

Theburst with which the carriage started out of the village and up therise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill.Gradually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upwardamong the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with athousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips; the valetwalked by the horses; the courier was audible, trotting on ahead intothe dull distance.

Atthe steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, witha Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poorfigure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he hadstudied the figure from the life — his own life, maybe — for it wasdreadfully spare and thin.

Tothis distressful emblem of a great distress that had long beengrowing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. Sheturned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, andpresented herself at the carriage-door.

«Itis you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition.»

Withan exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, Monseigneur looked out.

«How, then! What is it? Always petitions!»

“Monseigneur.For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester.»

«Whatof your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. Hecannot pay something?»

«Hehas paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead.»

«Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?»

«Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poorgrass.»

«Well?»

«Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass?»

«Again, well?»

Shelooked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionategrief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands togetherwith wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door — tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expectedto feel the appealing touch.

«Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of want; somany die of want; so many more will die of want.»

«Again, well? Can I feed them?»

«Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don’t ask it. My petition is, that amorsel of stone or wood, with my husband’s name, may be placed overhim to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quicklyforgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want.Monseigneur! Monseigneur!»

Thevalet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into abrisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left farbehind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidlydiminishing the league or two of distance that remained between himand his chateau.

Thesweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, asthe rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worngroup at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, withthe aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlargedupon his man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. Bydegrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, andlights twinkled in little casements; which lights, as the casementsdarkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into thesky instead of having been extinguished.

Theshadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow wasexchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, andthe great door of his chateau was opened to him.

«MonsieurCharles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?»

«Monseigneur, not yet.»

Itwas a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps ofstaircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. Astony business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stoneurns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads oflions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries ago.

Upthe broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeaupreceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing thedarkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of thegreat pile of stable building away among the trees. All else was soquiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeauheld at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room ofstate, instead of being in the open night-air. Other sound than theowl’s voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into itsstone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold theirbreath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and holdtheir breath again.

Thegreat door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed ahall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and knives of thechase; grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and riding-whips, ofwhich many a peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt theweight when his lord was angry.

Avoidingthe larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on before, wentup the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, admittedhim to his own private apartment of three rooms: his bed-chamber andtwo others. High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, greatdogs upon the hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and allluxuries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age andcountry. The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that wasnever to break — the fourteenth Louis — was conspicuous in their richfurniture; but, it was diversified by many objects that wereillustrations of old pages in the history of France.

Asupper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a roundroom, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-topped towers. Asmall lofty room, with its window wide open, and the woodenjalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showed in slighthorizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad lines ofstone colour.

«Mynephew,» said the Marquis, glancing at the supper preparation;«they said he was not arrived.»

Norwas he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur.

«Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless, leave thetable as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour.»

Ina quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone to hissumptuous and choice supper. His chair was opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bordeaux tohis lips, when he put it down.

«Whatis that?» he calmly asked, looking with attention at the horizontallines of black and stone colour.

«Monseigneur? That?»

«Outsidethe blinds. Open the blinds.»

Itwas done.

«Well?»

«Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all that are here.»

Theservant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out intothe vacant darkness, and stood with that blank behind him, lookinground for instructions.

«Good,«said the imperturbable master. «Close them again.»

Thatwas done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He was halfway through it, when he again stopped with his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up to thefront of the chateau.

«Askwho is arrived.»

Itwas the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues behindMonseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had diminished the distancerapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on theroad. He had heard of Monseigneur, at the posting-houses, as beingbefore him.

Hewas to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then andthere, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while hecame. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay.

Monseigneurreceived him in a courtly manner, but they did not shake hands.

«Youleft Paris yesterday, sir?» he said to Monseigneur, as he took hisseat at table.

“Yesterday.And you?»

«Icome direct.»

«FromLondon?»

«Yes.»

«Youhave been a long time coming,» said the Marquis, with a smile.

«Onthe contrary; I come direct.»

«Pardonme! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long time intending thejourney.»

«Ihave been detained by» — the nephew stopped a moment in hisanswer — «various business.»

«Withoutdoubt,» said the polished uncle.

Solong as a servant was present, no other words passed between them. When coffee had been served and they were alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like afine mask, opened a conversation.

«Ihave come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that tookme away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril; but it is asacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would havesustained me.»

«Notto death,» said the uncle; «it is not necessary to say, todeath.»

«Idoubt, sir,» returned the nephew, «whether, if it had carried meto the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there.»

Thedeepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straightlines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the uncle made agraceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form ofgood breeding that it was not reassuring.

«Indeed, sir,» pursued the nephew, «for anything I know, you may haveexpressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to thesuspicious circumstances that surrounded me.»

«No, no, no,» said the uncle, pleasantly.

«But, however that may be,» resumed the nephew, glancing at him with deepdistrust, «I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to means.»

«Myfriend, I told you so,» said the uncle, with a fine pulsation inthe two marks. «Do me the favour to recall that I told you so, longago.»

«Irecall it.»

«Thankyou,» said the Marquis — very sweetly indeed.

Histone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musicalinstrument.

«Ineffect, sir,» pursued the nephew, «I believe it to be at onceyour bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of aprison in France here.»

«Ido not quite understand,» returned the uncle, sipping his coffee.«Dare I ask you to explain?»

«Ibelieve that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had notbeen overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachetwould have sent me to some fortress indefinitely.»

«Itis possible,» said the uncle, with great calmness. «For thehonour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to thatextent. Pray excuse me!»

«Iperceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day beforeyesterday was, as usual, a cold one,» observed the nephew.

«Iwould not say happily, my friend,» returned the uncle, with refinedpoliteness; «I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity forconsideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, mightinfluence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence itfor yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as yousay, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, thesegentle aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favoursthat might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interestand importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in allsuch things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors heldthe right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From thisroom, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the nextroom (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on thespot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting hisdaughter — his daughter? We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not goso far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. Allvery bad, very bad!»

TheMarquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; aselegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country stillcontaining himself, that great means of regeneration.

«Wehave so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the moderntime also,» said the nephew, gloomily, «that I believe our nameto be more detested than any name in France.»

«Letus hope so,» said the uncle. «Detestation of the high is theinvoluntary homage of the low.»

«Thereis not,» pursued the nephew, in his former tone, «a face I canlook at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me withany deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery.»

«Acompliment,» said the Marquis, «to the grandeur of the family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. Hah!» And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightlycrossed his legs.

But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyesthoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask looked athim sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer’s assumption ofindifference.

«Repressionis the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear andslavery, my friend,» observed the Marquis, «will keep the dogsobedient to the whip, as long as this roof,» looking up to it,«shuts out the sky.»

Thatmight not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture of thechateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like itas they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shownto him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own fromthe ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked rains. As for the roof hevaunted, he might have found that shutting out thesky in a new way — to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies intowhich its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousandmuskets.

«Meanwhile,«said the Marquis, «I will preserve the honour and repose of thefamily, if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall we terminateour conference for the night?»

«Amoment more.»

«Anhour, if you please.»

«Sir,«said the nephew, «we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits ofwrong.»

«We havedone wrong?» repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring smile, anddelicately pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself.

«Ourfamily; our honourable family, whose honour is of so much account toboth of us, in such different ways. Even in my father’s time, wedid a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came betweenus and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father’stime, when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father’stwin-brother, joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself?»

«Deathhas done that!» said the Marquis.

«Andhas left me,» answered the nephew, «bound to a system that isfrightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it; seeking toexecute the last request of my dear mother’s lips, and obey thelast look of my dear mother’s eyes, which implored me to have mercyand to redress; and tortured by seeking assistance and power invain.»

«Seekingthem from me, my nephew,» said the Marquis, touching him on thebreast with his forefinger — they were now standing by thehearth — «you will for ever seek them in vain, be assured.»

Everyfine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking quietly athis nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again he touched himon the breast, as though his finger were the fine point of a smallsword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through the body, and said,

«Myfriend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I havelived.»

Whenhe had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put his boxin his pocket.

«Betterto be a rational creature,» he added then, after ringing a smallbell on the table, «and accept your natural destiny. But you arelost, Monsieur Charles, I see.»

«Thisproperty and France are lost to me,» said the nephew, sadly; «Irenounce them.»

«Arethey both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? Itis scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?»

«Ihad no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passedto me from you, to-morrow — »

«WhichI have the vanity to hope is not probable.»

« — ortwenty years hence — »

«Youdo me too much honour,» said the Marquis; «still, I prefer thatsupposition.»

« — Iwould abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little torelinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!»

«Hah!«said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.

«Tothe eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, under thesky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering.»

«Hah!«said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.

«Ifit ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands betterqualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from theweight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannotleave it and who have been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less; but it is not for me. Thereis a curse on it, and on all this land.»

«Andyou?» said the uncle. «Forgive my curiosity; do you, under yournew philosophy, graciously intend to live?»

«Imust do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility attheir backs, may have to do some day — work.»

«InEngland, for example?»

“Yes.The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country. The familyname can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other.»

Theringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber to belighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of communication.The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step ofhis valet.

«Englandis very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you haveprospered there,» he observed then, turning his calm face to hisnephew with a smile.

«Ihave already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I maybe indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge.»

«Theysay, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You knowa compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?»

«Yes.»

«Witha daughter?»

«Yes.»

«Yes,«said the Marquis. «You are fatigued. Good night!»

Ashe bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy inhis smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the sametime, the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and thethin straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with asarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic.

«Yes,«repeated the Marquis. «A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So commencesthe new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good night!»

Itwould have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone faceoutside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephewlooked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door.

«Goodnight!» said the uncle. «I look to the pleasure of seeing youagain in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my nephew to hischamber there! — And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if youwill,» he added to himself, before he rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom.

Thevalet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in hisloose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hotstill night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feetmaking no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger: — lookedlike some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, instory, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just goingoff, or just coming on.

Hemoved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at thescraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden into his mind; theslow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, themill, the prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, thepeasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cappointing out the chain under the carriage. That fountain suggestedthe Paris fountain, the little bundle lying on the step, the womenbending over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, «Dead!»

«Iam cool now,» said Monsieur the Marquis, «and may go to bed.»

So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thingauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its silencewith a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep.

Thestone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night forthree heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the horses in the stablesrattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noisewith very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionallyassigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom ofsuch creatures hardly ever to say what is set down for them.

Forthree heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all theroads. The burial-place had got to the pass that its little heaps ofpoor grass were undistinguishable from one another; the figure on theCross might have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. Inthe village, taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, ofbanquets, as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as thedriven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants sleptsoundly, and were fed and freed.

Thefountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountainat the chateau dropped unseen and unheard — both melting away, likethe minutes that were falling from the spring of Time — through threedark hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly in thelight, and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened.

Lighterand lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the stilltrees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the waterof the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone facescrimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on theweather-beaten sill of the great window of the bed-chamber ofMonsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with allits might. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken.

Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Casementwindows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forthshivering — chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began therarely lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, to the fountain; some, to the fields; men and women here, to dig anddelve; men and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and leadthe bony cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside.In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; attendanton the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among theweeds at its foot.

Thechateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually andsurely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase hadbeen reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morningsunshine; now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in theirstables looked round over their shoulders at the light and freshnesspouring in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-gratedwindows, dogs pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to beloosed.

Allthese trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and thereturn of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell ofthe chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurriedfigures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and thereand everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away?

Whatwinds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already atwork on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day’s dinner (notmuch to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow’s whileto peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grainsof it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as iffor his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stoppedtill he got to the fountain.

Allthe people of the village were at the fountain, standing about intheir depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no otheremotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastilybrought in and tethered to anything that would hold them, werelooking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothingparticularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up intheir interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the chateau, andsome of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of thelittle street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught withnothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midstof a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself inthe breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and whatportended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servanton horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new versionof the German ballad of Leonora?

Itportended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau.

TheGorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had addedthe one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waitedthrough about two hundred years.

Itlay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a finemask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home intothe heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round itshilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled:

«Drivehim fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.»

Moremonths, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. CharlesDarnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the Frenchlanguage who was conversant with French literature. In this age, hewould have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He readwith young men who could find any leisure and interest for the studyof a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated ataste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in sound English, and render them into sound English. Suchmasters were not at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and noruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn cooksand carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the student’sway unusually pleasant and profitable, and as an elegant translatorwho brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was wellacquainted, more-over, with the circumstances of his country, andthose were of ever-growing interest. So, with great perseverance anduntiring industry, he prospered.

InLondon, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor tolie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, hewould not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperityconsisted.

Acertain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he readwith undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove acontraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greekand Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed inLondon.

Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days whenit is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man hasinvariably gone one way — Charles Darnay’s way — the way of thelove of a woman.

Hehad loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had neverheard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionatevoice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers whenit was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had beendug for him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; theassassination at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heavingwater and the long, long, dusty roads — the solid stone chateau whichhad itself become the mere mist of a dream — had been done a year, and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosedto her the state of his heart.

Thathe had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a summerday when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation, heturned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunityof opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summerday, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross.

Hefound the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The energywhich had at once supported him under his old sufferings andaggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. Hewas now a very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energyhe was sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first beenin the exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had neverbeen frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare.

Hestudied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue withease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand.

«CharlesDarnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your returnthese three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton wereboth here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due.»

«Iam obliged to them for their interest in the matter,» he answered, a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor.«Miss Manette — »

«Iswell,» said the Doctor, as he stopped short, «and your returnwill delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, butwill soon be home.»

«DoctorManette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of herbeing from home, to beg to speak to you.»

Therewas a blank silence.

«Yes?«said the Doctor, with evident constraint. «Bring your chair here, and speak on.»

Hecomplied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on lesseasy.

«Ihave had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here,«so he at length began, «for some year and a half, that I hope thetopic on which I am about to touch may not — »

Hewas stayed by the Doctor’s putting out his hand to stop him. Whenhe had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back:

«IsLucie the topic?»

«Sheis.»

«Itis hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me tohear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay.»

«Itis a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, DoctorManette!» he said deferentially.

Therewas another blank silence before her father rejoined:

«Ibelieve it. I do you justice; I believe it.»

Hisconstraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that itoriginated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that CharlesDarnay hesitated.

«ShallI go on, sir?»

Anotherblank.

«Yes, go on.»

«Youanticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly Isay it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, andthe hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden.Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, Ilove her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!»

TheDoctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on theground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried:

«Notthat, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!»

Hiscry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in CharlesDarnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the handhe had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause.The latter so received it, and remained silent.

«Iask your pardon,» said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after somemoments. «I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied ofit.»

Heturned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or raisehis eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hairovershadowed his face:

«Haveyou spoken to Lucie?»

«No.»

«Norwritten?»

«Never.»

«Itwould be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is tobe referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanksyou.»

Heoffered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it.

«Iknow,» said Darnay, respectfully, «how can I fail to know, DoctorManette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that betweenyou and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, thatit can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a fatherand child. I know, Doctor Manette — how can I fail to know — that, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become awoman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and relianceof infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had noparent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy andfervour of her present years and character, united to thetrustfulness and attachment of the early days in which you were lostto her. I know perfectly well that if you had been restored to herfrom the world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested, in hersight, with a more sacred character than that in which you are alwayswith her. I know that when she is clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your neck. I know that inloving you she sees and loves her mother at her own age, sees andloves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted, loves youthrough your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I haveknown this, night and day, since I have known you in your home.»

Herfather sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was alittle quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation.

«DearDoctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you withthis hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as longas it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even nowfeel, that to bring my love — even mine — between you, is to touchyour history with something not quite so good as itself. But I loveher. Heaven is my witness that I love her!»

«Ibelieve it,» answered her father, mournfully. «I have thought sobefore now. I believe it.»

«But, do not believe,» said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voicestruck with a reproachful sound, «that if my fortune were so castas that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at anytime put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathea word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to behopeless, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any suchpossibility, even at a remote distance of years, harboured in mythoughts, and hidden in my heart — if it ever had been there — if itever could be there — I could not now touch this honoured hand.»

Helaid his own upon it as he spoke.

«No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; likeyou, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, andtrusting in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death.Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, andfriend; but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if sucha thing can be.»

Histouch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering the touch fora moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the armsof his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning ofthe conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle withthat occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt anddread.

«Youspeak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank youwith all my heart, and will open all my heart — or nearly so. Haveyou any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?»

“None.As yet, none.»

«Isit the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at onceascertain that, with my knowledge?»

«Noteven so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow.»

«Doyou seek any guidance from me?»

«Iask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have itin your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some.»

«Doyou seek any promise from me?»

«Ido seek that.»

«Whatis it?»

«Iwell understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I wellunderstand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in herinnocent heart — do not think I have the presumption to assume somuch — I could retain no place in it against her love for herfather.»

«Ifthat be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it?»

«Iunderstand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor’sfavour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason, Doctor Manette,» said Darnay, modestly but firmly, «I would notask that word, to save my life.»

«Iam sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, aswell as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle anddelicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in thisone respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the stateof her heart.»

«MayI ask, sir, if you think she is — » As he hesitated, her fathersupplied the rest.

«Issought by any other suitor?»

«Itis what I meant to say.»

Herfather considered a little before he answered:

«Youhave seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these.»

«Orboth,» said Darnay.

«Ihad not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You wanta promise from me. Tell me what it is.»

«Itis, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her ownpart, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, youwill bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. Ihope you may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influenceagainst me. I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what Iask. The condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubtedright to require, I will observe immediately.»

«Igive the promise,» said the Doctor, «without any condition. Ibelieve your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have statedit. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, theties between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should evertell me that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will giveher to you. If there were — Charles Darnay, if there were — »

Theyoung man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined asthe Doctor spoke:

« — anyfancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new orold, against the man she really loved — the direct responsibilitythereof not lying on his head — they should all be obliterated forher sake. She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more tome than wrong, more to me — Well! This is idle talk.»

Sostrange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strangehis fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his ownhand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it.

«Yousaid something to me,» said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile.«What was it you said to me?»

Hewas at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of acondition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered:

«Yourconfidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on mypart. My present name, though but slightly changed from my mother’s, is not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what thatis, and why I am in England.»

«Stop!«said the Doctor of Beauvais.

«Iwish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have nosecret from you.»

«Stop!»

Foran instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; foranother instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay’s lips.

«Tellme when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucieshould love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do youpromise?»

«Willingly.

«Giveme your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she shouldnot see us together to-night. Go! God bless you!»

Itwas dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later anddarker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone — forMiss Pross had gone straight up-stairs — and was surprised to findhis reading-chair empty.

«Myfather!» she called to him. «Father dear!»

Nothingwas said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in hisbedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked inat his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, withher blood all chilled, «What shall I do! What shall I do!»

Heruncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at hisdoor, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of hervoice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and downtogether for a long time.

Shecame down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. Heslept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his oldunfinished work, were all as usual.

Sydney,«said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or morning, to his jackal;«mix another bowl of punch; I have something to say to you.»

Sydneyhad been working double tides that night, and the night before, andthe night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making agrand clearance among Mr. Stryver’s papers before the setting in ofthe long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryverarrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of untilNovember should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, andbring grist to the mill again.

Sydneywas none the livelier and none the soberer for so much application.It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull him through thenight; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded thetowelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulledhis turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped itat intervals for the last six hours.

«Areyou mixing that other bowl of punch?» said Stryver the portly, withhis hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he layon his back.

«Iam.»

«Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather surpriseyou, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as shrewd asyou usually do think me. I intend to marry.»

«Do you?»

“Yes.And not for money. What do you say now?»

«Idon’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she?»

«Guess.»

«DoI know her?»

«Guess.»

«Iam not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, with mybrains frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, youmust ask me to dinner.»

«Wellthen, I’ll tell you,» said Stryver, coming slowly into a sittingposture. «Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible toyou, because you are such an insensible dog.»

«Andyou,» returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, «are such asensitive and poetical spirit — »

«Come!«rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, «though I don’t prefer anyclaim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), stillI am a tenderer sort of fellow than you.»

«Youare a luckier, if you mean that.»

«Idon’t mean that. I mean I am a man of more — more — »

«Saygallantry, while you are about it,» suggested Carton.

«Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man,» said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, «who caresmore to be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knowsbetter how to be agreeable, in a woman’s society, than you do.»

«Goon,» said Sydney Carton.

«No; but before I go on,» said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullyingway, «I’ll have this out with you. You’ve been at DoctorManette’s house as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I havebeen ashamed of your moroseness there! Your manners have been of thatsilent and sullen and hangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, Ihave been ashamed of you, Sydney!»

«Itshould be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to beashamed of anything,» returned Sydney; «you ought to be muchobliged to me.»

«Youshall not get off in that way,» rejoined Stryver, shouldering therejoinder at him; «no, Sydney, it’s my duty to tell you — and Itell you to your face to do you good — that you are a devilishill-conditioned fellow in that sort of society. You are adisagreeable fellow.»

Sydneydrank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed.

«Lookat me!» said Stryver, squaring himself; «I have less need to makemyself agreeable than you have, being more independent incircumstances. Why do I do it?»

«Inever saw you do it yet,» muttered Carton.

«Ido it because it’s politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! Iget on.»

«Youdon’t get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,«answered Carton, with a careless air; «I wish you would keep tothat. As to me — will you never understand that I am incorrigible?»

Heasked the question with some appearance of scorn.

«Youhave no business to be incorrigible,» was his friend’s answer, delivered in no very soothing tone.

«Ihave no business to be, at all, that I know of,» said SydneyCarton. «Who is the lady?»

«Now, don’t let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, Sydney,» said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatiousfriendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, «because Iknow you don’t mean half you say; and if you meant it all, it wouldbe of no importance. I make this little preface, because you oncementioned the young lady to me in slighting terms.»

«Idid?»

«Certainly; and in these chambers.»

SydneyCarton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend; drankhis punch and looked at his complacent friend.

«Youmade mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The younglady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitivenessor delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have beena little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you arenot. You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyedwhen I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man’sopinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of apiece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.»

SydneyCarton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers, lookingat his friend.

«Nowyou know all about it, Syd,» said Mr. Stryver. «I don’t careabout fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mindto please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to pleasemyself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and arapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction: it is a piece ofgood fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are youastonished?»

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, «Why should I be astonished?»

«Youapprove?»

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, «Why should I not approve?»

«Well!«said his friend Stryver, «you take it more easily than I fanciedyou would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought youwould be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time thatyour ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, Ihave had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change fromit; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home whenhe feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn’t, he can stay away),and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and willalways do me credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, oldboy, I want to say a word to you about your prospects. You are in a bad way, you know; you really are in a bad way. Youdon’t know the value of money, you live hard, you’ll knock up oneof these days, and be ill and poor; you really ought to think about anurse.»

Theprosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice asbig as he was, and four times as offensive.

«Now, let me recommend you,» pursued Stryver, «to look it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in theface, you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to takecare of you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women’ssociety, nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody.Find out some respectable woman with a little property — somebody inthe landlady way, or lodging-letting way — and marry her, against arainy day. That’s the kind of thing for you.Now think of it, Sydney.»

«I’llthink of it,» said Sydney.

Mr.Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of goodfortune on the Doctor’s daughter, resolved to make her happinessknown to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After somemental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it wouldbe as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they couldthen arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand aweek or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmasvacation between it and Hilary.

Asto the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearlysaw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantialworldly grounds — the only grounds ever worth taking into account — itwas a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himselffor the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, thecounsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did noteven turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfiedthat no plainer case could be.

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal totake Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself inSoho, and there declare his noble mind.

TowardsSoho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s infancy was still upon it.Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he wasyet on Saint Dunstan’s side of Temple Bar, bursting in hisfull-blown way along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weakerpeople, might have seen how safe and strong he was.

Hisway taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at Tellson’sand knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, itentered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the doorwith the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, gotpast the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the mustyback closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled forfigures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum.

«Halloa!«said Mr. Stryver. «How do you do? I hope you are well!»

Itwas Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big forany place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that oldclerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, asthough he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into itsresponsible waistcoat.

Thediscreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he wouldrecommend under the circumstances, «How do you do, Mr. Stryver? Howdo you do, sir?» and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in hismanner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson’swho shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. Heshook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co.

«CanI do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?» asked Mr. Lorry, in hisbusiness character.

«Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I havecome for a private word.»

«Ohindeed!» said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eyestrayed to the House afar off.

«Iam going,» said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on thedesk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appearedto be not half desk enough for him: «I am going to make an offer ofmyself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.»

«Ohdear me!» cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at hisvisitor dubiously.

«Ohdear me, sir?» repeated Stryver, drawing back. «Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?»

«Mymeaning,» answered the man of business, «is, of course, friendlyand appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and — inshort, my meaning is everything you could desire. But — really, youknow, Mr. Stryver — » Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at himin the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will toadd, internally, «you know there really is so much too much ofyou!»

«Well!«said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, openinghis eyes wider, and taking a long breath, «if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I’ll be hanged!»

Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards thatend, and bit the feather of a pen.

«D — nit all, sir!» said Stryver, staring at him, «am I not eligible?»

«Ohdear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you’re eligible!» said Mr. Lorry. «Ifyou say eligible, you are eligible.»

Original

«AmI not prosperous?» asked Stryver.

«Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous,» said Mr. Lorry.

«Andadvancing?»

«Ifyou come to advancing you know,» said Mr. Lorry, delighted to beable to make another admission, «nobody can doubt that.»

«Thenwhat on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?» demanded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen.

«Well! I — Were you going there now?» asked Mr. Lorry.

«Straight!«said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk.

«ThenI think I wouldn’t, if I was you.»

«Why?«said Stryver. «Now, I’ll put you in a corner,» forensicallyshaking a forefinger at him. «You are a man of business and boundto have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn’t you go?»

«Because,«said Mr. Lorry, «I wouldn’t go on such an object without havingsome cause to believe that I should succeed.»

«D — n me!«cried Stryver, «but this beats everything.»

Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry Stryver.

«Here’sa man of business — a man of years — a man of experience — in aBank,» said Stryver; «and having summed up three leading reasonsfor complete success, he says there’s no reason at all! Says itwith his head on!» Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as ifit would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it withhis head off.

«WhenI speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and whenI speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak ofcauses and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. Theyoung lady, my good sir,» said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping theStryver arm, «the young lady. The young lady goes before all.»

«Thenyou mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,» said Stryver, squaring his elbows,«that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at presentin question is a mincing Fool?»

«Notexactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver,» said Mr. Lorry, reddening, «that I will hear no disrespectful word of that younglady from any lips; and that if I knew any man — which I hope I donot — whose taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully ofthat young lady at this desk, not even Tellson’s should prevent mygiving him a piece of my mind.»

Thenecessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver’sblood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to beangry; Mr. Lorry’s veins, methodical as their courses could usuallybe, were in no better state now it was his turn.

«Thatis what I mean to tell you, sir,» said Mr. Lorry. «Pray let therebe no mistake about it.»

Mr.Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stoodhitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him thetoothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying:

«Thisis something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not togo up to Soho and offer myself — myself, Stryver of the King’s Bench bar?»

«Doyou ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?»

«Yes, I do.»

«Verygood. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly.»

«Andall I can say of it is,» laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, «thatthis — ha, ha! — beats everything past, present, and to come.»

«Nowunderstand me,» pursued Mr. Lorry. «As a man of business, I amnot justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man ofbusiness, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who hascarried Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of MissManette and of her father too, and who has a great affection for themboth, I have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect.Now, you think I may not be right?»

«NotI!» said Stryver, whistling. «I can’t undertake to find thirdparties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I supposesense in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butternonsense. It’s new to me, but you are right, I dare say.»

«WhatI suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself — Andunderstand me, sir,» said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, «Iwill not — not even at Tellson’s — have it characterised for me byany gentleman breathing.»

«There! I beg your pardon!» said Stryver.

“Granted.Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say: — it might bepainful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful toDoctor Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it mightbe very painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicitwith you. You know the terms upon which I have the honour andhappiness to stand with the family. If you please, committing you inno way, representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct myadvice by the exercise of a little new observation and judgmentexpressly brought to bear upon it. If you should then be dissatisfiedwith it, you can but test its soundness for yourself; if, on theother hand, you should be satisfied with it, and it should be what itnow is, it may spare all sides what is best spared. What do you say?»

«Howlong would you keep me in town?»

«Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in theevening, and come to your chambers afterwards.»

«ThenI say yes,» said Stryver: «I won’t go up there now, I am not sohot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you tolook in to-night. Good morning.»

ThenMr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such aconcussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against itbowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remainingstrength of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeblepersons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and werepopularly believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keepon bowing in the empty office until they bowed another customer in.

Thebarrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not havegone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid groundthan moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he hadto swallow, he got it down. «And now,» said Mr. Stryver, shakinghis forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down,«my way out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong.»

Itwas a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he foundgreat relief. «You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady,«said Mr. Stryver; «I’ll do that for you.»

Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o’clock, Mr.Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for thepurpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject ofthe morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and wasaltogether in an absent and preoccupied state.

«Well!«said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of bootlessattempts to bring him round to the question. «I have been to Soho.»

«ToSoho?» repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. «Oh, to be sure! What am Ithinking of!»

«AndI have no doubt,» said Mr. Lorry, «that I was right in theconversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate myadvice.»

«Iassure you,» returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, «thatI am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poorfather’s account. I know this must always be a sore subject withthe family; let us say no more about it.»

«Idon’t understand you,» said Mr. Lorry.

«Idare say not,» rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothingand final way; «no matter, no matter.»

«Butit does matter,» Mr. Lorry urged.

«Noit doesn’t; I assure you it doesn’t. Having supposed that therewas sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition wherethere is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and noharm is done. Young women have committed similar follies oftenbefore, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before.In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, becauseit would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; ina selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because itwould have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view — it ishardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing by it. There isno harm at all done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means certain, on reflection, that Iever should have committed myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, youcannot control the mincing vanities and giddinesses of empty-headedgirls; you must not expect to do it, or you will always bedisappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, I regret iton account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. And I amreally very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and forgiving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; youwere right, it never would have done.»

Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr.Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance ofshowering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head.«Make the best of it, my dear sir,» said Stryver; «say no moreabout it; thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good night!»

Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryverwas lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling.

IfSydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in thehouse of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a wholeyear, and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring fornothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was veryrarely pierced by the light within him.

Andyet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a nighthe vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought notransitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed hissolitary figure lingering there, and still lingering there when thefirst beams of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beautiesof architecture in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhapsthe quiet time brought some sense of better things, else forgottenand unattainable, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in theTemple Court had known him more scantily than ever; and often when hehad thrown himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, he had gotup again, and haunted that neighbourhood.

Ona day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal that“he had thought better of that marrying matter») had carried hisdelicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers inthe City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, ofhealth for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney’sfeet still trod those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became animated by an intention, and, in the working out ofthat intention, they took him to the Doctor’s door.

Hewas shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She hadnever been quite at her ease with him, and received him with somelittle embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at his face in the interchange of the first fewcommon-places, she observed a change in it.

«Ifear you are not well, Mr. Carton!»

«No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. Whatis to be expected of, or by, such profligates?»

«Isit not — forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips — a pity tolive no better life?»

«Godknows it is a shame!»

«Thenwhy not change it?»

Lookinggently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that therewere tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as heanswered:

«Itis too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall sinklower, and be worse.»

Heleaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. Thetable trembled in the silence that followed.

Shehad never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her tobe so, without looking at her, and said:

«Prayforgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of what Iwant to say to you. Will you hear me?»

«Ifit will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, itwould make me very glad!»

«Godbless you for your sweet compassion!»

Heunshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily.

«Don’tbe afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I say. I am likeone who died young. All my life might have been.»

«No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I amsure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.»

«Sayof you, Miss Manette, and although I know better — although in themystery of my own wretched heart I know better — I shall never forgetit!»

Shewas pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair ofhimself which made the interview unlike any other that could havebeen holden.

«Ifit had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned thelove of the man you see before yourself — flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to be — he wouldhave been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow andrepentance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him. I knowvery well that you can have no tenderness for me; I ask for none; Iam even thankful that it cannot be.»

«Withoutit, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall you — forgive meagain! — to a better course? Can I in no way repay your confidence? Iknow this is a confidence,» she modestly said, after a littlehesitation, and in earnest tears, «I know you would say this to noone else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?»

Heshook his head.

«Tonone. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a verylittle more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to knowthat you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation Ihave not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadowsthat I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have beentroubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that Ithought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of strivingafresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, andfighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends innothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you toknow that you inspired it.»

«Willnothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!»

«No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quiteundeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still theweakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindledme, heap of ashes that I am, into fire — a fire, however, inseparablein its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.»

«Sinceit is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy thanyou were before you knew me — »

«Don’tsay that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if anythingcould. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse.»

«Sincethe state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events, attributable to some influence of mine — this is what I mean, if Ican make it plain — can I use no influence to serve you? Have I nopower for good, with you, at all?»

«Theutmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come hereto realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, theremembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; andthat there was something left in me at this time which you coulddeplore and pity.»

«WhichI entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with allmy heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!»

«Entreatme to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and Iknow better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let mebelieve, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my lifewas reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies therealone, and will be shared by no one?»

«Ifthat will be a consolation to you, yes.»

«Noteven by the dearest one ever to be known to you?»

“Mr.Carton,» she answered, after an agitated pause, «the secret isyours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.»

«Thankyou. And again, God bless you.»

Heput her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door.

«Beunder no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming thisconversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to itagain. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth.In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one goodremembrance — and shall thank and bless you for it — that my lastavowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, andmiseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be lightand happy!»

Hewas so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sadto think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day keptdown and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as hestood looking back at her.

«Becomforted!» he said, «I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette.An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that Iscorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, thoughoutwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The lastsupplication but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this ofme.»

«Iwill, Mr. Carton.»

«Mylast supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you ofa visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, andbetween whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless tosay it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for anydear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that betterkind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, Iwould embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try tohold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere inthis one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long incoming, when new ties will be formed about you — ties that will bindyou yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn — thedearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, tokeep a life you love beside you!»

Hesaid, «Farewell!» said a last «God bless you!» and left her.

Tothe eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool inFleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number andvariety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who couldsit upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one evertending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward fromthe sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red andpurple where the sun goes down!

Withhis straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on dutywatching one stream — saving that Jerry had no expectation of theirever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopefulkind, since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotageof timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term oflife) from Tellson’s side of the tides to the opposite shore. Briefas such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Crunchernever failed to become so interested in the lady as to express astrong desire to have the honour of drinking her very good health.And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution ofthis benevolent purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just nowobserved.

Timewas, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in thesight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, butnot being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him.

Itfell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were sounprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs.Cruncher must have been «flopping» in some pointed manner, whenan unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attractedhis attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kindof funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection tothis funeral, which engendered uproar.

«YoungJerry,» said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, «it’s aburyin’.»

«Hooroar, father!» cried Young Jerry.

Theyoung gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterioussignificance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that hewatched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear.

«Whatd’ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conweyto your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too manyfor me!«said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. «Him and his hooroars! Don’tlet me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D’yehear?»

«Iwarn’t doing no harm,» Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek.

«Dropit then,» said Mr. Cruncher; «I won’t have none of your noharms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd.»

Hisson obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissinground a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourningcoach there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings thatwere considered essential to the dignity of the position. Theposition appeared by no means to please him, however, with anincreasing rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, makinggrimaces at him, and incessantly groaning and calling out: «Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!» with many compliments too numerous andforcible to repeat.

Funeralshad at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he alwayspricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passedTellson’s. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommonattendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ranagainst him:

«Whatis it, brother? What’s it about?»

«I don’tknow,» said the man. «Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!»

Heasked another man. «Who is it?»

«I don’tknow,» returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouthnevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with thegreatest ardour, «Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi — ies!»

Atlength, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbledagainst him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was thefuneral of one Roger Cly.

«Washe a spy?» asked Mr. Cruncher.

«OldBailey spy,» returned his informant. «Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old BaileySpi — i—ies!»

«Why, to be sure!» exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he hadassisted. «I’ve seen him. Dead, is he?»

«Deadas mutton,» returned the other, «and can’t be too dead. Have’em out, there! Spies! Pull ’em out, there! Spies!»

Theidea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that thecrowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating thesuggestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em out, mobbed the twovehicles so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd’sopening the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out by himself andwas in their hands for a moment; but he was so alert, and made suchgood use of his time, that in another moment he was scouring away upa bye-street, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, whitepocket-handkerchief, and other symbolical tears.

These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with greatenjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for acrowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster muchdreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearse totake the coffin out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, itsbeing escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practicalsuggestions being much needed, this suggestion, too, was receivedwith acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled with eightinside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof of thehearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among thefirst of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestlyconcealed his spiky head from the observation of Tellson’s, in thefurther corner of the mourning coach.

Theofficiating undertakers made some protest against these changes inthe ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and severalvoices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringingrefractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faintand brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweepdriving the hearse — advised by the regular driver, who was perchedbeside him, under close inspection, for the purpose — and with apieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourningcoach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time, wasimpressed as an additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gonefar down the Strand; and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gavequite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which hewalked.

Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinitecaricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it.Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in thefields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into theburial-ground; finally, accomplished the interment of the deceasedRoger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own satisfaction.

Thedead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity ofproviding some other entertainment for itself, another brightergenius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeachingcasual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance onthem. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who hadnever been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation ofthis fancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated. Thetransition to the sport of window-breaking, and thence to theplundering of public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, afterseveral hours, when sundry summer-houses had been pulled down, andsome area-railings had been torn up, to arm the more belligerentspirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were coming. Before thisrumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of amob.

Mr.Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remainedbehind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers.The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from aneighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railingsand maturely considering the spot.

«Jerry,«said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, «yousee that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that hewas a young ’un and a straight made ’un.»

Havingsmoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himselfabout, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on hisstation at Tellson’s. Whether his meditations on mortality hadtouched his liver, or whether his general health had been previouslyat all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to aneminent man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a shortcall upon his medical adviser — a distinguished surgeon — on his wayback.

YoungJerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No jobin his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, theusual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea.

«Now, I tell you where it is!» said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, onentering. «If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrongto-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying again me, andI shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.»

Thedejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head.

«Why, you’re at it afore my face!» said Mr. Cruncher, with signs ofangry apprehension.

«Iam saying nothing.»

«Well, then; don’t meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether.»

«Yes, Jerry.»

«Yes, Jerry,» repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. «Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes, Jerry.»

Mr.Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, butmade use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express generalironical dissatisfaction.

«Youand your yes, Jerry,» said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of hisbread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisibleoyster out of his saucer. «Ah! I think so. I believe you.»

«Youare going out to-night?» asked his decent wife, when he tookanother bite.

«Yes, I am.»

«MayI go with you, father?» asked his son, briskly.

«No, you mayn’t. I’m a going — as your mother knows — a fishing.That’s where I’m going to. Going a fishing.»

«Yourfishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father?»

«Neveryou mind.»

«Shallyou bring any fish home, father?»

«IfI don’t, you’ll have short commons, to-morrow,» returned thatgentleman, shaking his head; «that’s questions enough for you; Iain’t a going out, till you’ve been long abed.»

Hedevoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a mostvigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her inconversation that she might be prevented from meditating anypetitions to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son tohold her in conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hardlife by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring againsther, rather than he would leave her for a moment to her ownreflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greaterhomage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in thisdistrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghostsshould be frightened by a ghost story.

«Andmind you!» said Mr. Cruncher. «No games to-morrow! If I, as ahonest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, noneof your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honesttradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaringon water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a uglycustomer to you, if you don’t. I’myour Rome, you know.»

Thenhe began grumbling again:

«Withyour flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don’tknow how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles and drink here, by yourflopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he is your’n, ain’t he? He’s as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know that a mother’s first duty is to blow her boy out?»

Thistouched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother toperform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of thatmaternal function so affectingly and delicately indicated by hisother parent.

Thusthe evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry wasordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the nightwith solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion untilnearly one o’clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose upfrom his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a lockedcupboard, and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, arope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposingthese articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a partingdefiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out.

YoungJerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness hefollowed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down thecourt, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasinessconcerning his getting into the house again, for it was full oflodgers, and the door stood ajar all night.

Impelledby a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his father’shonest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held hishonoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, hadnot gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged on together.

Withinhalf an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the winkinglamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a lonelyroad. Another fisherman was picked up here — and that so silently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposedthe second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself into two.

Thethree went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped undera bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low brickwall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and wallthe three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which thewall — there, risen to some eight or ten feet high — formed one side.Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object thatYoung Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty welldefined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an irongate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, andthen the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within thegate, and lay there a little — listening perhaps. Then, they movedaway on their hands and knees.

Itwas now Young Jerry’s turn to approach the gate: which he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, andlooking in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through somerank grass! and all the gravestones in the churchyard — it was alarge churchyard that they were in — looking on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrousgiant. They did not creep far, before they stopped and stood upright.And then they began to fish.

Theyfished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent appearedto be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. Whatevertools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking ofthe church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with hishair as stiff as his father’s.

But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not onlystopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They werestill fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for thesecond time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was ascrewing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figureswere strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight brokeaway the earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry verywell knew what it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honouredparent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new tothe sight, that he made off again, and never stopped until he had runa mile or more.

Hewould not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highlydesirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffinhe had seen was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behindhim, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point ofovertaking him and hopping on at his side — perhaps taking his arm — itwas a pursuer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiendtoo, for, while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful, hedarted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of itscoming hopping out of them like a dropsical boy’s kite without tailand wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shouldersagainst doors, and drawing them up to its ears, as if it werelaughing. It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on itsback to trip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping onbehind and gaining on him, so that when the boy got to his own doorhe had reason for being half dead. And even then it would not leavehim, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambledinto bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breastwhen he fell asleep.

Fromhis oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened afterdaybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in thefamily room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so YoungJerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher bythe ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board ofthe bed.

«Itold you I would,» said Mr. Cruncher, «and I did.»

«Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!» his wife implored.

«Youoppose yourself to the profit of the business,» said Jerry, «andme and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devildon’t you?»

«Itry to be a good wife, Jerry,» the poor woman protested, withtears.

«Isit being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? Is ithonouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying yourhusband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?»

«Youhadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.»

«It’senough for you,» retorted Mr. Cruncher, «to be the wife of ahonest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind withcalculations when he took to his trade or when he didn’t. Ahonouring and obeying wife would let his trade alone altogether. Callyourself a religious woman? If you’re a religious woman, give me airreligious one! You have no more nat’ral sense of duty than thebed of this here Thames river has of a pile, and similarly it must beknocked into you.»

Thealtercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated inthe honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lyingdown at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at himlying on his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell asleep again.

Therewas no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr.Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an ironpot-lid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He wasbrushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son topursue his ostensible calling.

YoungJerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father’s sidealong sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different YoungJerry from him of the previous night, running home through darknessand solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with theday, and his qualms were gone with the night — in which particularsit is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and theCity of London, that fine morning.

«Father,«said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep at arm’slength and to have the stool well between them: «what’s aResurrection-Man?»

Mr.Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, «Howshould I know?»

«Ithought you knowed everything, father,» said the artless boy.

«Hem! Well,» returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off hishat to give his spikes free play, «he’s a tradesman.»

«What’shis goods, father?» asked the brisk Young Jerry.

«Hisgoods,» said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, «isa branch of Scientific goods.»

«Persons’bodies, ain’t it, father?» asked the lively boy.

«Ibelieve it is something of that sort,» said Mr. Cruncher.

«Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I’m quitegrowed up!»

Mr.Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way.«It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful todewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help tonobody, and there’s no telling at the present time what you may notcome to be fit for.» As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a fewyards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr.Cruncher added to himself: «Jerry, you honest tradesman, there’shopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense toyou for his mother!»

Therehad been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of MonsieurDefarge. As early as six o’clock in the morning, sallow facespeeping through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wineat the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unusuallythin wine that he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or asouring, for its influence on the mood of those who drank it was tomake them gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of thepressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burntin the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it.

Thishad been the third morning in succession, on which there had beenearly drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. It had begun onMonday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of earlybrooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered andslunk about there from the time of the opening of the door, who couldnot have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls.These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as ifthey could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they glided fromseat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu ofdrink, with greedy looks.

Notwithstandingan unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop was notvisible. He was not missed; for, nobody who crossed the thresholdlooked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see onlyMadame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced andbeaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of humanityfrom whose ragged pockets they had come.

Asuspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhapsobserved by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they lookedin at every place, high and low, from the king’s palace to thecriminal’s gaol. Games at cards languished, players at dominoesmusingly built towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the tableswith spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out thepattern on her sleeve with her toothpick, and saw and heard somethinginaudible and invisible a long way off.

Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It washigh noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets andunder his swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: theother a mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the twoentered the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire inthe breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, whichstirred and flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke when they entered thewine-shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned upon them.

«Goodday, gentlemen!» said Monsieur Defarge.

Itmay have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicitedan answering chorus of «Good day!»

«Itis bad weather, gentlemen,» said Defarge, shaking his head.

Uponwhich, every man looked at his neighbour, and then all cast downtheir eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went out.

«Mywife,» said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: «I havetravelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, calledJacques. I met him — by accident — a day and half’s journey out ofParis. He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Givehim to drink, my wife!»

Asecond man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before themender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to thecompany, and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried somecoarse dark bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munchingand drinking near Madame Defarge’s counter. A third man got up andwent out.

Defargerefreshed himself with a draught of wine — but, he took less than wasgiven to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was norarity — and stood waiting until the countryman had made hisbreakfast. He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was atwork.

«Haveyou finished your repast, friend?» he asked, in due season.

«Yes, thank you.»

«Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could occupy.It will suit you to a marvel.»

Outof the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the staircase intoa garret — formerly the garret where a white-haired man sat on a lowbench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.

Nowhite-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there who hadgone out of the wine-shop singly. And between them and thewhite-haired man afar off, was the one small link, that they had oncelooked in at him through the chinks in the wall.

Defargeclosed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice:

«JacquesOne, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness encountered byappointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Five!»

Themender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead withit, and said, «Where shall I commence, monsieur?»

«Commence,«was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable reply, «at thecommencement.»

«Isaw him then, messieurs,» began the mender of roads, «a year agothis running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hangingby the chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascendingthe hill, he hanging by the chain — like this.»

Againthe mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which heought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been theinfallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his villageduring a whole year.

JacquesOne struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before?

«Never,«answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular.

JacquesThree demanded how he afterwards recognised him then?

«Byhis tall figure,» said the mender of roads, softly, and with hisfinger at his nose. «When Monsieur the Marquis demands thatevening, „Say, what is he like?“ I make response, „Tall as aspectre.“»

«Youshould have said, short as a dwarf,» returned Jacques Two.

«Butwhat did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither did heconfide in me. Observe! Under those circumstances even, I do notoffer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with hisfinger, standing near our little fountain, and says, „To me! Bringthat rascal!“ My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.»

«Heis right there, Jacques,» murmured Defarge, to him who hadinterrupted. «Go on!»

«Good!«said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. «The tall man islost, and he is sought — how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?»

«Nomatter, the number,» said Defarge. «He is well hidden, but atlast he is unluckily found. Go on!»

«Iam again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again about to goto bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in thevillage below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, andsee coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tallman with his arms bound — tied to his sides — like this!»

Withthe aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with hiselbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were knotted behindhim.

«Istand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers andtheir prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, where anyspectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sight — except on the side ofthe sun going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, Isee that their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the oppositeside of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like theshadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered with dust, andthat the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But whenthey advance quite near to me, I recognise the tall man, and herecognises me. Ah, but he would be well content to precipitatehimself over the hill-side once again, as on the evening when he andI first encountered, close to the same spot!»

Hedescribed it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw itvividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life.

«Ido not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he does notshow the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. „Come on!“ says the chief of that company, pointing to the village, „bring him fast to his tomb!“ and theybring him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of beingbound so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he islame. Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him withtheir guns — like this!»

Heimitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward by thebutt-ends of muskets.

«Asthey descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. Theylaugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered withdust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bringhim into the village; all the village runs to look; they take himpast the mill, and up to the prison; all the village sees the prisongate open in the darkness of the night, and swallow him — like this!»

Heopened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a soundingsnap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar the effectby opening it again, Defarge said, «Go on, Jacques.»

«Allthe village,» pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a lowvoice, «withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; allthe village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never tocome out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools uponmy shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make acircuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him, highup, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as lastnight, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I darenot call to him; he regards me like a dead man.»

Defargeand the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all of themwere dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to thecountryman’s story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; JacquesOne and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin restingon his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated handalways gliding over the network of fine nerves about his mouth andnose; Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he hadstationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him tothem, and from them to him.

«Goon, Jacques,» said Defarge.

«Heremains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at himby stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from adistance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when thework of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at thefountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, theywere turned towards the posting-house; now, they are turned towardsthe prison. They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned todeath he will not be executed; they say that petitions have beenpresented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and made mad by thedeath of his child; they say that a petition has been presented tothe King himself. What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.»

«Listenthen, Jacques,» Number One of that name sternly interposed. «Knowthat a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in thestreet, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, withthe petition in his hand.»

«Andonce again listen, Jacques!» said the kneeling Number Three: hisfingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with astrikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something — that wasneither food nor drink; «the guard, horse and foot, surrounded thepetitioner, and struck him blows. You hear?»

«Ihear, messieurs.»

«Goon then,» said Defarge.

«Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,» resumed thecountryman, «that he is brought down into our country to beexecuted on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed.They even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and becauseMonseigneur was the father of his tenants — serfs — what you will — hewill be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off beforehis face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, hisbreast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb fromlimb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was actuallydone to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar.»

«Listenonce again then, Jacques!» said the man with the restless hand andthe craving air. «The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it wasall done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris; andnothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, thanthe crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eagerattention to the last — to the last, Jacques, prolonged untilnightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was done — why, how old are you?»

«Thirty-five,«said the mender of roads, who looked sixty.

«Itwas done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seenit.»

«Enough!«said Defarge, with grim impatience. «Long live the Devil! Go on.»

«Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sundaynight when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding downfrom the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the littlestreet. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in themorning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water.»

Themender of roads looked through rather than at thelow ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in thesky.

«Allwork is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, thecows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiershave marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst ofmany soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is agag — tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if helaughed.» He suggested it, by creasing his face with his twothumbs, from the corners of his mouth to his ears. «On the top ofthe gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in theair. He is hanged there forty feet high — and is left hanging, poisoning the water.»

Theylooked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, onwhich the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled thespectacle.

«Itis frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children drawwater! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun wasgoing to bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck acrossthe church, across the mill, across the prison — seemed to strikeacross the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!»

Thehungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him.

«That’sall, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), and Iwalked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I was warnedI should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now riding and nowwalking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. Andhere you see me!»

Aftera gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, «Good! You have acted andrecounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside thedoor?»

«Verywillingly,» said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge escorted to thetop of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned.

Thethree had risen, and their heads were together when he came back tothe garret.

«Howsay you, Jacques?» demanded Number One. «To be registered?»

«Tobe registered, as doomed to destruction,» returned Defarge.

«Magnificent!«croaked the man with the craving.

«Thechateau, and all the race?» inquired the first.

«Thechateau and all the race,» returned Defarge. «Extermination.»

Thehungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, «Magnificent!» andbegan gnawing another finger.

«Areyou sure,» asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, «that no embarrassmentcan arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt itis safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall wealways be able to decipher it — or, I ought to say, will she?»

«Jacques,«returned Defarge, drawing himself up, «if madame my wife undertookto keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a wordof it — not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and herown symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide inMadame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon thatlives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter ofhis name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.»

Therewas a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man whohungered, asked: «Is this rustic to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is very simple; is he not a little dangerous?»

«Heknows nothing,» said Defarge; «at least nothing more than wouldeasily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I chargemyself with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, andset him on his road. He wishes to see the fine world — the King, theQueen, and Court; let him see them on Sunday.»

«What?«exclaimed the hungry man, staring. «Is it a good sign, that hewishes to see Royalty and Nobility?»

«Jacques,«said Defarge; «judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her tothirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wishhim to bring it down one day.»

Nothingmore was said, and the mender of roads, being found already dozing onthe topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the pallet-bedand take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was soon asleep.

Worsequarters than Defarge’s wine-shop, could easily have been found inParis for a provincial slave of that degree. Saving for a mysteriousdread of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was verynew and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, soexpressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not toperceive that his being there had any connection with anything belowthe surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eyelighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was impossibleto foresee what that lady might pretend next; and he felt assuredthat if she should take it into her brightly ornamented head topretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay thevictim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play wasplayed out.

Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted (though hesaid he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur andhimself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to havemadame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it wasadditionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in theafternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waitedto see the carriage of the King and Queen.

«Youwork hard, madame,» said a man near her.

«Yes,«answered Madame Defarge; «I have a good deal to do.»

«Whatdo you make, madame?»

«Manythings.»

«Forinstance — »

«Forinstance,» returned Madame Defarge, composedly, «shrouds.»

Theman moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the menderof roads fanned himself with his blue cap: feeling it mightily closeand oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he wasfortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-facedKing and the fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended bythe shining Bull’s Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude oflaughing ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powderand splendour and elegantly spurning figures and handsomelydisdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxication, that he cried Long live theKing, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! as ifhe had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, therewere gardens, courtyards, terraces, fountains, green banks, more Kingand Queen, more Bull’s Eye, more lords and ladies, more Long livethey all! until he absolutely wept with sentiment. During the wholeof this scene, which lasted some three hours, he had plenty ofshouting and weeping and sentimental company, and throughout Defargeheld him by the collar, as if to restrain him from flying at theobjects of his brief devotion and tearing them to pieces.

«Bravo!«said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like apatron; «you are a good boy!»

Themender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful ofhaving made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no.

«Youare the fellow we want,» said Defarge, in his ear; «you makethese fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are themore insolent, and it is the nearer ended.»

«Hey!«cried the mender of roads, reflectively; «that’s true.»

«Thesefools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would stop itfor ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than in oneof their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath tellsthem. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot deceivethem too much.»

MadameDefarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded inconfirmation.

«Asto you,» said she, «you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?»

«Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment.»

«Ifyou were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluckthem to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you wouldpick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?»

«Trulyyes, madame.»

“Yes.And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were setupon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, youwould set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?»

«Itis true, madame.»

«Youhave seen both dolls and birds to-day,» said Madame Defarge, with awave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent;«now, go home!»

MadameDefarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom ofSaint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through thedarkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue bythe wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass wherethe chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened tothe whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few villagescarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of deadstick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard andterrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that theexpression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in thevillage — had a faint and bare existence there, as its peoplehad — that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from facesof pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that danglingfigure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changedagain, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they wouldhenceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great window ofthe bed-chamber where the murder was done, two fine dints werepointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, andwhich nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two orthree ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peepat Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not havepointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among themoss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find aliving there.

Chateauand hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stonefloor, and the pure water in the village well — thousands of acres ofland — a whole province of France — all France itself — lay under thenight sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does awhole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in atwinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of lightand analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligencesmay read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thoughtand act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

TheDefarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight, intheir public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their journeynaturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrierguardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usualexamination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one ortwo of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he wasintimate with, and affectionately embraced.

WhenSaint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, andthey, having finally alighted near the Saint’s boundaries, werepicking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of hisstreets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband:

«Saythen, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?»

«Verylittle to-night, but all he knows. There is another spy commissionedfor our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he can say, buthe knows of one.»

«Ehwell!» said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a coolbusiness air. «It is necessary to register him. How do they callthat man?»

«Heis English.»

«Somuch the better. His name?»

«Barsad,«said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had been socareful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with perfectcorrectness.

«Barsad,«repeated madame. «Good. Christian name?»

«John.»

«JohnBarsad,» repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself.«Good. His appearance; is it known?»

«Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, facethin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having apeculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister.»

«Ehmy faith. It is a portrait!» said madame, laughing. «He shall beregistered to-morrow.»

Theyturned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight),and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made otherentries of her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents ofthe bowl of money for the second time, and began knotting them up inher handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keepingthrough the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in hismouth, walked up and down, complacently admiring, but neverinterfering; in which condition, indeed, as to the business and hisdomestic affairs, he walked up and down through life.

Thenight was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul aneighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge’s olfactory sensewas by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much strongerthan it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy andaniseed. He whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down hissmoked-out pipe.

«Youare fatigued,» said madame, raising her glance as she knotted themoney. «There are only the usual odours.»

«Iam a little tired,» her husband acknowledged.

«Youare a little depressed, too,» said madame, whose quick eyes hadnever been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or twofor him. «Oh, the men, the men!»

«Butmy dear!» began Defarge.

«Butmy dear!» repeated madame, nodding firmly; «but my dear! You arefaint of heart to-night, my dear!»

«Well, then,» said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his breast,«it is along time.»

«Itis a long time,» repeated his wife; «and when is it not a longtime? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.»

«Itdoes not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning,» saidDefarge.

«Howlong,» demanded madame, composedly, «does it take to make andstore the lightning? Tell me.»

Defargeraised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that too.

«Itdoes not take a long time,» said madame, «for an earthquake toswallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare theearthquake?»

«Along time, I suppose,» said Defarge.

«Butwhen it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everythingbefore it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is notseen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.»

Shetied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe.

«Itell thee,» said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis,«that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road andcoming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell theeit is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all theworld that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addressesitself with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such thingslast? Bah! I mock you.»

«Mybrave wife,» returned Defarge, standing before her with his head alittle bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile andattentive pupil before his catechist, «I do not question all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possible — you know well, mywife, it is possible — that it may not come, during our lives.»

«Ehwell! How then?» demanded madame, tying another knot, as if therewere another enemy strangled.

«Well!«said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic shrug. «Weshall not see the triumph.»

«Weshall have helped it,» returned madame, with her extended hand instrong action. «Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat andtyrant, and still I would — »

Thenmadame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed.

«Hold!«cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged withcowardice; «I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.»

«Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victimand your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for thetime with the tiger and the devil chained — not shown — yet alwaysready.»

Madameenforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking herlittle counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brainsout, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in aserene manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed.

Nextnoontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if she now andthen glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her usualpreoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or notdrinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive andadventurous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses nearmadame, fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression onthe other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolestmanner (as if they themselves were elephants, or something as farremoved), until they met the same fate. Curious to consider howheedless flies are! — perhaps they thought as much at Court thatsunny summer day.

Afigure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge whichshe felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began topin her rose in her head-dress, before she looked at the figure.

Itwas curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, thecustomers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of thewine-shop.

«Goodday, madame,» said the new-comer.

«Goodday, monsieur.»

Shesaid it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: «Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, blackhair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having apeculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinisterexpression! Good day, one and all!»

«Havethe goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a mouthfulof cool fresh water, madame.»

Madamecomplied with a polite air.

«Marvellouscognac this, madame!»

Itwas the first time it had ever been so complimented, and MadameDefarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. Thevisitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took theopportunity of observing the place in general.

«Youknit with great skill, madame.»

«Iam accustomed to it.»

«Apretty pattern too!»

«You thinkso?» said madame, looking at him with a smile.

“Decidedly.May one ask what it is for?»

«Pastime,«said madame, still looking at him with a smile while her fingersmoved nimbly.

«Notfor use?»

«Thatdepends. I may find a use for it one day. If I do — Well,» saidmadame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind ofcoquetry, «I’ll use it!»

Itwas remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to bedecidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge. Twomen had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence oflooking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away.Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was thereone left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in apoverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural andunimpeachable.

«John,«thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, and hereyes looked at the stranger. «Stay long enough, and I shall knit‘barsad’before you go.»

«Youhave a husband, madame?»

«Ihave.»

«Children?»

«Nochildren.»

«Businessseems bad?»

«Businessis very bad; the people are so poor.»

«Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, too — as you say.»

«As you say,«madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an extrasomething into his name that boded him no good.

«Pardonme; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. Ofcourse.»

«I think?«returned madame, in a high voice. «I and my husband have enough todo to keep this wine-shop open, without thinking. All we think, here, is how to live. That is the subject we thinkof, and it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, without embarrassing our heads concerning others. I thinkfor others? No, no.»

Thespy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, didnot allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face; but, stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow onMadame Defarge’s little counter, and occasionally sipping hiscognac.

«Abad business this, madame, of Gaspard’s execution. Ah! the poorGaspard!» With a sigh of great compassion.

«Myfaith!» returned madame, coolly and lightly, «if people useknives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehandwhat the price of his luxury was; he has paid the price.»

«Ibelieve,» said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone thatinvited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionarysusceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: «I believe thereis much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, touching the poorfellow? Between ourselves.»

«Isthere?» asked madame, vacantly.

«Isthere not?»

« — Hereis my husband!» said Madame Defarge.

Asthe keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy saluted himby touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, «Good day, Jacques!» Defarge stopped short, and stared at him.

«Goodday, Jacques!» the spy repeated; with not quite so much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare.

«Youdeceive yourself, monsieur,» returned the keeper of the wine-shop.«You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am ErnestDefarge.»

«Itis all the same,» said the spy, airily, but discomfited too: «goodday!»

«Goodday!» answered Defarge, drily.

«Iwas saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting whenyou entered, that they tell me there is — and no wonder! — muchsympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate ofpoor Gaspard.»

«Noone has told me so,» said Defarge, shaking his head. «I knownothing of it.»

Havingsaid it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his handon the back of his wife’s chair, looking over that barrier at theperson to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them wouldhave shot with the greatest satisfaction.

Thespy, well used to his business, did not change his unconsciousattitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of freshwater, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge pouredit out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little songover it.

«Youseem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?«observed Defarge.

«Notat all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interestedin its miserable inhabitants.»

«Hah!«muttered Defarge.

«Thepleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me,«pursued the spy, «that I have the honour of cherishing someinteresting associations with your name.»

«Indeed!«said Defarge, with much indifference.

«Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, hadthe charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. You see I aminformed of the circumstances?»

«Suchis the fact, certainly,» said Defarge. He had had it conveyed tohim, in an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as she knitted andwarbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity.

«Itwas to you,» said the spy, «that his daughter came; and it wasfrom your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neatbrown monsieur; how is he called? — in a little wig — Lorry — of thebank of Tellson and Company — over to England.»

«Suchis the fact,» repeated Defarge.

«Veryinteresting remembrances!» said the spy. «I have known DoctorManette and his daughter, in England.»

«Yes?«said Defarge.

«Youdon’t hear much about them now?» said the spy.

«No,«said Defarge.

«Ineffect,» madame struck in, looking up from her work and her littlesong, «we never hear about them. We received the news of their safearrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then, they have gradually taken their road in life — we, ours — and we haveheld no correspondence.»

«Perfectlyso, madame,» replied the spy. «She is going to be married.»

«Going?«echoed madame. «She was pretty enough to have been married longago. You English are cold, it seems to me.»

«Oh! You know I am English.»

«Iperceive your tongue is,» returned madame; «and what the tongueis, I suppose the man is.»

Hedid not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the bestof it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac tothe end, he added:

«Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to onewho, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that sheis going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whomGaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is noMarquis there; he is Mr. Charles Darnay. D’Aulnais is the name ofhis mother’s family.»

MadameDefarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable effectupon her husband. Do what he would, behind the little counter, as tothe striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he wastroubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have beenno spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind.

Havingmade, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad paidfor what he had drunk, and took his leave: taking occasion to say, ina genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to thepleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For someminutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of SaintAntoine, the husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he should come back.

«Canit be true,» said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wifeas he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair: «whathe has said of Ma’amselle Manette?»

«Ashe has said it,» returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little,«it is probably false. But it may be true.»

«Ifit is — » Defarge began, and stopped.

«Ifit is?» repeated his wife.

« — Andif it does come, while we live to see it triumph — I hope, for hersake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France.»

«Herhusband’s destiny,» said Madame Defarge, with her usualcomposure, «will take him where he is to go, and will lead him tothe end that is to end him. That is all I know.»

«Butit is very strange — now, at least, is it not very strange» — saidDefarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it,«that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her husband’s name should be proscribed under your hand at thismoment, by the side of that infernal dog’s who has just left us?»

«Strangerthings than that will happen when it does come,» answered madame.«I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both here fortheir merits; that is enough.»

Sherolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presentlytook the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionabledecoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for itsdisappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, veryshortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect.

Inthe evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turnedhimself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges, and cameto the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass fromplace to place and from group to group: a Missionary — there weremany like her — such as the world will do well never to breed again.All the women knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, themechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the jaws and the digestive apparatus: if the bonyfingers had been still, the stomachs would have been morefamine-pinched.

But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as MadameDefarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker andfiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left behind.

Herhusband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. «Agreat woman,» said he, «a strong woman, a grand woman, afrightfully grand woman!»

Darknessclosed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and thedistant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as thewomen sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Anotherdarkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, thenringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should bemelted into thundering cannon; when the military drums should bebeating to drown a wretched voice, that night all potent as the voiceof Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in aboutthe women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selveswere closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were tosit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.

Neverdid the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner inSoho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter satunder the plane-tree together. Never did the moon rise with a milderradiance over great London, than on that night when it found themstill seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through itsleaves.

Luciewas to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last evening forher father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree.

«Youare happy, my dear father?»

«Quite, my child.»

Theyhad said little, though they had been there a long time. When it wasyet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged herself inher usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself inboth ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, this time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so.

«AndI am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in the lovethat Heaven has so blessed — my love for Charles, and Charles’slove for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even bythe length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy andself-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is — »

Evenas it was, she could not command her voice.

Inthe sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her faceupon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the lightof the sun itself is — as the light called human life is — at itscoming and its going.

«Dearestdear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, quitesure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will everinterpose between us? I knowit well, but do you know it? In your own heart, do you feel quitecertain?»

Herfather answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he couldscarcely have assumed, «Quite sure, my darling! More than that,«he added, as he tenderly kissed her: «my future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, than it could have been — nay, than it ever was — without it.»

«IfI could hope that, my father! — »

«Believeit, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, cannot fullyappreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not bewasted — »

Shemoved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeatedthe word.

« — wasted, my child — should not be wasted, struck aside from the natural orderof things — for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirelycomprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself, how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete?»

«IfI had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happywith you.»

Hesmiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappywithout Charles, having seen him; and replied:

«Mychild, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not beenCharles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, Ishould have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life wouldhave cast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you.»

Itwas the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing himrefer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and newsensation while his words were in her ears; and she remembered itlong afterwards.

«See!«said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. «Ihave looked at her from my prison-window, when I could not bear herlight. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me tothink of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my headagainst my prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull andlethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number ofhorizontal lines I could draw across her at the full, and the numberof perpendicular lines with which I could intersect them.» He addedin his inward and pondering manner, as he looked at the moon, «Itwas twenty either way, I remember, and the twentieth was difficult tosqueeze in.»

Thestrange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was nothing to shock her inthe manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his presentcheerfulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over.

«Ihave looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unbornchild from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether it hadbeen born alive, or the poor mother’s shock had killed it. Whetherit was a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a timein my imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it was a son who would never know his father’s story; whomight even live to weigh the possibility of his father’s havingdisappeared of his own will and act. Whether it was a daughter whowould grow to be a woman.»

Shedrew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand.

«Ihave pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful ofme — rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I havecast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen hermarried to a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogetherperished from the remembrance of the living, and in the nextgeneration my place was a blank.»

«Myfather! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter whonever existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child.»

«You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you have broughtto me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us and themoon on this last night. — What did I say just now?»

«Sheknew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you.»

«So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silence havetouched me in a different way — have affected me with something aslike a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for itsfoundations could — I have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and leading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seenher image in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that Inever held her in my arms; it stood between the little grated windowand the door. But, you understand that that was not the child I amspeaking of?»

«Thefigure was not; the — the — image; the fancy?»

“No.That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense of sight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was another andmore real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more than thatshe was like her mother. The other had that likeness too — as youhave — but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, Ithink? I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understandthese perplexed distinctions.»

Hiscollected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from runningcold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition.

«Inthat more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of hermarried life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father.My picture was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life wasactive, cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all.»

«Iwas that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my lovethat was I.»

«Andshe showed me her children,» said the Doctor of Beauvais, «andthey had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When theypassed a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could neverdeliver me; I imagined that she always brought me back after showingme such things. But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fellupon my knees, and blessed her.»

«Iam that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you blessme as fervently to-morrow?»

«Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have to-night forloving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my greathappiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near thehappiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us.»

Heembraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thankedHeaven for having bestowed her on him. By-and-bye, they went into thehouse.

Therewas no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was even to beno bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to make nochange in their place of residence; they had been able to extend it, by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to theapocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more.

DoctorManette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were only threeat table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that Charleswas not there; was more than half disposed to object to the lovinglittle plot that kept him away; and drank to him affectionately.

So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie camedownstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshapedfears, beforehand.

Allthings, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he layasleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and hishands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in theshadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his; then, leaned over him, and looked at him.

Intohis handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, hecovered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he heldthe mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in itsquiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, wasnot to be beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night.

Shetimidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer thatshe might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and ashis sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed hislips once more, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadowsof the leaves of the plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as herlips had moved in praying for him.

Themarriage-day was shining brightly, and they were ready outside theclosed door of the Doctor’s room, where he was speaking withCharles Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross — to whom the event, through a gradualprocess of reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one ofabsolute bliss, but for the yet lingering consideration that herbrother Solomon should have been the bridegroom.

«Andso,» said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of herquiet, pretty dress; «and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, thatI brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! Howlittle I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued theobligation I was conferring on my friend Mr. Charles!»

«Youdidn’t mean it,» remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, «andtherefore how could you know it? Nonsense!»

«Really? Well; but don’t cry,» said the gentle Mr. Lorry.

«Iam not crying,» said Miss Pross; «you are.»

«I, my Pross?» (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.)

«Youwere, just now; I saw you do it, and I don’t wonder at it. Such apresent of plate as you have made ’em, is enough to bring tearsinto anybody’s eyes. There’s not a fork or a spoon in thecollection,» said Miss Pross, «that I didn’t cry over, lastnight after the box came, till I couldn’t see it.»

«Iam highly gratified,» said Mr. Lorry, «though, upon my honour, Ihad no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembranceinvisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a manspeculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that theremight have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!»

«Notat all!» From Miss Pross.

«Youthink there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?» asked thegentleman of that name.

«Pooh!«rejoined Miss Pross; «you were a bachelor in your cradle.»

«Well!«observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, «that seemsprobable, too.»

«Andyou were cut out for a bachelor,» pursued Miss Pross, «before youwere put in your cradle.»