Hard Times

by Dickens, Charles

  laugh, 'Ay, Rachael, lass, awlus a muddle. That's where I stick.

  I come to the muddle many times and agen, and I never get beyond

  it.'

  They had walked some distance, and were near their own homes. The

  woman's was the first reached. It was in one of the many small

  streets for which the favourite undertaker (who turned a handsome

  sum out of the one poor ghastly pomp of the neighbourhood) kept a

  black ladder, in order that those who had done their daily groping

  up and down the narrow stairs might slide out of this working world

  by the windows. She stopped at the corner, and putting her hand in

  his, wished him good night.

  'Good night, dear lass; good night!'

  She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly step, down the

  dark street, and he stood looking after her until she turned into

  one of the small houses. There was not a flutter of her coarse

  shawl, perhaps, but had its interest in this man's eyes; not a tone

  of her voice but had its echo in his innermost heart.

  When she was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward way,

  glancing up sometimes at the sky, where the clouds were sailing

  fast and wildly. But, they were broken now, and the rain had

  ceased, and the moon shone, - looking down the high chimneys of

  Coketown on the deep furnaces below, and casting Titanic shadows of

  the steam-engines at rest, upon the walls where they were lodged.

  The man seemed to have brightened with the night, as he went on.

  His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it was

  narrower, was over a little shop. How it came to pass that any

  people found it worth their while to sell or buy the wretched

  little toys, mixed up in its window with cheap newspapers and pork

  (there was a leg to be raffled for to-morrow-night), matters not

  here. He took his end of candle from a shelf, lighted it at

  another end of candle on the counter, without disturbing the

  mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little room, and went

  upstairs into his lodging.

  It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various

  tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could be. A few

  books and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture

  was decent and sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted,

  the room was clean.

  Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round threelegged

  table standing there, he stumbled against something. As he

  recoiled, looking down at it, it raised itself up into the form of

  a woman in a sitting attitude.

  'Heaven's mercy, woman!' he cried, falling farther off from the

  figure. 'Hast thou come back again!'

  Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to

  preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself with one begrimed

  hand on the floor, while the other was so purposeless in trying to

  push away her tangled hair from her face, that it only blinded her

  the more with the dirt upon it. A creature so foul to look at, in

  her tatters, stains and splashes, but so much fouler than that in

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  her moral infamy, that it was a shameful thing even to see her.

  After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of herself

  with the hand not necessary to her support, she got her hair away

  from her eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then she sat

  swaying her body to and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved

  arm, which seemed intended as the accompaniment to a fit of

  laughter, though her face was stolid and drowsy.

  'Eigh, lad? What, yo'r there?' Some hoarse sounds meant for this,

  came mockingly out of her at last; and her head dropped forward on

  her breast.

  'Back agen?' she screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that

  moment said it. 'Yes! And back agen. Back agen ever and ever so

  often. Back? Yes, back. Why not?'

  Roused by the unmeaning violence with which she cried it out, she

  scrambled up, and stood supporting herself with her shoulders

  against the wall; dangling in one hand by the string, a dunghillfragment

  of a bonnet, and trying to look scornfully at him.

  'I'll sell thee off again, and I'll sell thee off again, and I'll

  sell thee off a score of times!' she cried, with something between

  a furious menace and an effort at a defiant dance. 'Come awa' from

  th' bed!' He was sitting on the side of it, with his face hidden

  in his hands. 'Come awa! from 't. 'Tis mine, and I've a right to

  t'!'

  As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, and passed -

  his face still hidden - to the opposite end of the room. She threw

  herself upon the bed heavily, and soon was snoring hard. He sunk

  into a chair, and moved but once all that night. It was to throw a

  covering over her; as if his hands were not enough to hide her,

  even in the darkness.

  CHAPTER XI - NO WAY OUT

  THE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning

  showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over

  Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing

  of bells; and all the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled

  up for the day's monotony, were at their heavy exercise again.

  Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special

  contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where Stephen

  worked, to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at

  which he laboured. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of

  mind, that Art will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere, side

  by side, the work of GOD and the work of man; and the former, even

  though it be a troop of Hands of very small account, will gain in

  dignity from the comparison.

  So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam

  Power. It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what

  the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National

  Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred,

  for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into

  vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of

  these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the regulated

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  actions. There is no mystery in it; there is an unfathomable

  mystery in the meanest of them, for ever. - Supposing we were to

  reverse our arithmetic for material objects, and to govern these

  awful unknown quantities by other means!

  The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against the

  flaming lights within. The lights were turned out, and the work

  went on. The rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, submissive to the

  curse of all that tribe, trailed themselves upon the earth. In the

  waste-yard outside, the steam from the escape pipe, the litter of

  barrels and old iron, the shining heaps of coals, the ashes

  everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of mist and rain.

  The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. More clattering upon

  t
he pavements. The looms, and wheels, and Hands all out of gear

  for an hour.

  Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold wet

  streets, haggard and worn. He turned from his own class and his

  own quarter, taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along,

  towards the hill on which his principal employer lived, in a red

  house with black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black

  street door, up two white steps, BOUNDERBY (in letters very like

  himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round brazen door-handle

  underneath it, like a brazen full-stop.

  Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had expected. Would

  his servant say that one of the Hands begged leave to speak to him?

  Message in return, requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool.

  There was nothing troublesome against Stephen Blackpool; yes, he

  might come in.

  Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he just knew

  by sight), at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. Sparsit netting at

  the fireside, in a side-saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton

  stirrup. It was a part, at once of Mrs. Sparsit's dignity and

  service, not to lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but

  implied that in her own stately person she considered lunch a

  weakness.

  'Now, Stephen,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'what's the matter with you?'

  Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one - these Hands will never do

  that! Lord bless you, sir, you'll never catch them at that, if

  they have been with you twenty years! - and, as a complimentary

  toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, tucked his neckerchief ends into his

  waistcoat.

  'Now, you know,' said Mr. Bounderby, taking some sherry, 'we have

  never had any difficulty with you, and you have never been one of

  the unreasonable ones. You don't expect to be set up in a coach

  and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold

  spoon, as a good many of 'em do!' Mr. Bounderby always represented

  this to be the sole, immediate, and direct object of any Hand who

  was not entirely satisfied; 'and therefore I know already that you

  have not come here to make a complaint. Now, you know, I am

  certain of that, beforehand.'

  'No, sir, sure I ha' not coom for nowt o' th' kind.'

  Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his

  previous strong conviction. 'Very well,' he returned. 'You're a

  steady Hand, and I was not mistaken. Now, let me hear what it's

  all about. As it's not that, let me hear what it is. What have

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  you got to say? Out with it, lad!'

  Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. 'I can go, Mr.

  Bounderby, if you wish it,' said that self-sacrificing lady, making

  a feint of taking her foot out of the stirrup.

  Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in

  suspension before swallowing it, and putting out his left hand.

  Then, withdrawing his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he

  said to Stephen:

  'Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high lady. You are

  not to suppose because she keeps my house for me, that she hasn't

  been very high up the tree - ah, up at the top of the tree! Now,

  if you have got anything to say that can't be said before a born

  lady, this lady will leave the room. If what you have got to say

  can be said before a born lady, this lady will stay where she is.'

  'Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a born lady to

  year, sin' I were born mysen',' was the reply, accompanied with a

  slight flush.

  'Very well,' said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his plate, and

  leaning back. 'Fire away!'

  'I ha' coom,' Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor, after

  a moment's consideration, 'to ask yo yor advice. I need 't

  overmuch. I were married on Eas'r Monday nineteen year sin, long

  and dree. She were a young lass - pretty enow - wi' good accounts

  of herseln. Well! She went bad - soon. Not along of me. Gonnows

  I were not a unkind husband to her.'

  'I have heard all this before,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'She took to

  drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, pawned the clothes,

  and played old Gooseberry.'

  'I were patient wi' her.'

  ('The more fool you, I think,' said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to

  his wine-glass.)

  'I were very patient wi' her. I tried to wean her fra 't ower and

  ower agen. I tried this, I tried that, I tried t'other. I ha'

  gone home, many's the time, and found all vanished as I had in the

  world, and her without a sense left to bless herseln lying on bare

  ground. I ha' dun 't not once, not twice - twenty time!'

  Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its

  affecting evidence of the suffering he had undergone.

  'From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left me. She

  disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad. She coom back, she

  coom back, she coom back. What could I do t' hinder her? I ha'

  walked the streets nights long, ere ever I'd go home. I ha' gone

  t' th' brigg, minded to fling myseln ower, and ha' no more on't. I

  ha' bore that much, that I were owd when I were young.'

  Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting-needles, raised

  the Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her head, as much as to say,

  'The great know trouble as well as the small. Please to turn your

  humble eye in My direction.'

  'I ha' paid her to keep awa' fra' me. These five year I ha' paid

  her. I ha' gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I ha' lived hard

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  and sad, but not ashamed and fearfo' a' the minnits o' my life.

  Last night, I went home. There she lay upon my har-stone! There

  she is!'

  In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his distress,

  he fired for the moment like a proud man. In another moment, he

  stood as he had stood all the time - his usual stoop upon him; his

  pondering face addressed to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious

  expression on it, half shrewd, half perplexed, as if his mind were

  set upon unravelling something very difficult; his hat held tight

  in his left hand, which rested on his hip; his right arm, with a

  rugged propriety and force of action, very earnestly emphasizing

  what he said: not least so when it always paused, a little bent,

  but not withdrawn, as he paused.

  'I was acquainted with all this, you know,' said Mr. Bounderby,

  'except the last clause, long ago. It's a bad job; that's what it

  is. You had better have been satisfied as you were, and not have

  got married. However, it's too late to say that.'

  'Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years?' asked Mrs.

  Sparsit.

  'You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point

  of years, this unlucky job of yours?' said Mr. Bounderby.

  'Not e'en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; she were twenty

  nighbut.'

  'Indeed, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great

  placidity. 'I inferred, from its being so
miserable a marriage,

  that it was probably an unequal one in point of years.'

  Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a side-long way

  that had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself with a

  little more sherry.

  'Well? Why don't you go on?' he then asked, turning rather

  irritably on Stephen Blackpool.

  'I ha' coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o' this woman.'

  Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of

  his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as

  having received a moral shock.

  'What do you mean?' said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back

  against the chimney-piece. 'What are you talking about? You took

  her for better for worse.'

  'I mun' be ridden o' her. I cannot bear 't nommore. I ha' lived

  under 't so long, for that I ha' had'n the pity and comforting

  words o' th' best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I

  should ha' gone battering mad.'

  'He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I

  fear, sir,' observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much

  dejected by the immorality of the people.

  'I do. The lady says what's right. I do. I were a coming to 't.

  I ha' read i' th' papers that great folk (fair faw 'em a'! I

  wishes 'em no hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worst

  so fast, but that they can be set free fro' their misfortnet

  marriages, an' marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that

  their tempers is ill-sorted, they has rooms o' one kind an' another

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  in their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. We fok

  ha' only one room, and we can't. When that won't do, they ha' gowd

  an' other cash, an' they can say "This for yo' an' that for me,"

  an' they can go their separate ways. We can't. Spite o' all that,

  they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I mun be

  ridden o' this woman, and I want t' know how?'

  'No how,' returned Mr. Bounderby.

  'If I do her any hurt, sir, there's a law to punish me?'

  'Of course there is.'

  'If I flee from her, there's a law to punish me?'

  'Of course there is.'

  'If I marry t'oother dear lass, there's a law to punish me?'

  'Of course there is.'

  'If I was to live wi' her an' not marry her - saying such a thing

  could be, which it never could or would, an' her so good - there's