Hard Times

by Dickens, Charles

  innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr.

  Bounderby, who had never ceased walking up and down, and had every

  moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and redder,

  stopped short.

  'I don't exactly know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'how I come to be

  favoured with the attendance of the present company, but I don't

  inquire. When they're quite satisfied, perhaps they'll be so good

  as to disperse; whether they're satisfied or not, perhaps they'll

  be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound to deliver a lecture on

  my family affairs, I have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a

  going to do it. Therefore those who expect any explanation

  whatever upon that branch of the subject, will be disappointed -

  particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he can't know it too soon. In

  reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a mistake made,

  concerning my mother. If there hadn't been over-officiousness it

  wouldn't have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all

  times, whether or no. Good evening!'

  Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the

  door open for the company to depart, there was a blustering

  sheepishness upon him, at once extremely crestfallen and

  superlatively absurd. Detected as the Bully of humility, who had

  built his windy reputation upon lies, and in his boastfulness had

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  put the honest truth as far away from him as if he had advanced the

  mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to a pedigree,

  he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the people filing off at the

  door he held, who he knew would carry what had passed to the whole

  town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a

  Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even

  that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of

  exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight

  as that remarkable man and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of

  Coketown.

  Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son's

  for that night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and

  there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very

  far, and spoke with much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he

  thought this signal failure of the suspicions against Mrs. Pegler

  was likely to work well.

  As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late

  occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that

  as long as Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge,

  he was so far safe. He never visited his sister, and had only seen

  her once since she went home: that is to say on the night when he

  still stuck close to Bounderby, as already related.

  There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister's mind,

  to which she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless

  and ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark

  possibility had presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this

  very day, to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who would be

  confounded by Stephen's return, having put him out of the way.

  Louisa had never spoken of harbouring any suspicion of her brother

  in connexion with the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence

  on the subject, save in that one interchange of looks when the

  unconscious father rested his gray head on his hand; but it was

  understood between them, and they both knew it. This other fear

  was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a ghostly

  shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far less

  of its being near the other.

  And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve

  with him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, let him show

  himself. Why didn't he?

  Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool.

  Where was the man, and why did he not come back?

  CHAPTER VI - THE STARLIGHT

  THE Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when

  early in the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country.

  As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the

  neighbourhood's too - after the manner of those pious persons who

  do penance for their own sins by putting other people into

  sackcloth - it was customary for those who now and then thirsted

  for a draught of pure air, which is not absolutely the most wicked

  among the vanities of life, to get a few miles away by the

  railroad, and then begin their walk, or their lounge in the fields.

  Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the smoke by the usual

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  means, and were put down at a station about midway between the town

  and Mr. Bounderby's retreat.

  Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of

  coal, it was green elsewhere, and there were trees to see, and

  there were larks singing (though it was Sunday), and there were

  pleasant scents in the air, and all was over-arched by a bright

  blue sky. In the distance one way, Coketown showed as a black

  mist; in another distance hills began to rise; in a third, there

  was a faint change in the light of the horizon where it shone upon

  the far-off sea. Under their feet, the grass was fresh; beautiful

  shadows of branches flickered upon it, and speckled it; hedgerows

  were luxuriant; everything was at peace. Engines at pits' mouths,

  and lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily labour

  into the ground, were alike quiet; wheels had ceased for a short

  space to turn; and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve

  without the shocks and noises of another time.

  They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes,

  sometimes getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it

  dropped at a touch of the foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of

  bricks and beams overgrown with grass, marking the site of deserted

  works. They followed paths and tracks, however slight. Mounds

  where the grass was rank and high, and where brambles, dock-weed,

  and such-like vegetation, were confusedly heaped together, they

  always avoided; for dismal stories were told in that country of the

  old pits hidden beneath such indications.

  The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They had seen no one,

  near or distant, for a long time; and the solitude remained

  unbroken. 'It is so still here, Rachael, and the way is so

  untrodden, that I think we must be the first who have been here all

  the summer.'

  As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another of those

  rotten fragments of fence upon the ground. She got up to look at

  it. 'And yet I don't know. This has not been broken very long.

  The wood is quite fresh where it gave way. Here are footsteps too.

  - O Rachael!'

  She ran back, and caught her round the neck. Rachael had already

  started up.

  'What is the matter?'

  'I don't know. There is a hat lying in the grass.'
They went

  forward together. Rachael took it up, shaking from head to foot.

  She broke into a passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen

  Blackpool was written in his own hand on the inside.

  'O the poor lad, the poor lad! He has been made away with. He is

  lying murdered here!'

  'Is there - has the hat any blood upon it?' Sissy faltered.

  They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found no

  mark of violence, inside or out. It had been lying there some

  days, for rain and dew had stained it, and the mark of its shape

  was on the grass where it had fallen. They looked fearfully about

  them, without moving, but could see nothing more. 'Rachael,' Sissy

  whispered, 'I will go on a little by myself.'

  She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping forward,

  when Rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that resounded

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  over the wide landscape. Before them, at their very feet, was the

  brink of a black ragged chasm hidden by the thick grass. They

  sprang back, and fell upon their knees, each hiding her face upon

  the other's neck.

  'O, my good Lord! He's down there! Down there!' At first this,

  and her terrific screams, were all that could be got from Rachael,

  by any tears, by any prayers, by any representations, by any means.

  It was impossible to hush her; and it was deadly necessary to hold

  her, or she would have flung herself down the shaft.

  'Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of Heaven, not

  these dreadful cries! Think of Stephen, think of Stephen, think of

  Stephen!'

  By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all the

  agony of such a moment, Sissy at last brought her to be silent, and

  to look at her with a tearless face of stone.

  'Rachael, Stephen may be living. You wouldn't leave him lying

  maimed at the bottom of this dreadful place, a moment, if you could

  bring help to him?'

  'No, no, no!'

  'Don't stir from here, for his sake! Let me go and listen.'

  She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on her

  hands and knees, and called to him as loud as she could call. She

  listened, but no sound replied. She called again and listened;

  still no answering sound. She did this, twenty, thirty times. She

  took a little clod of earth from the broken ground where he had

  stumbled, and threw it in. She could not hear it fall.

  The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes

  ago, almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she rose and

  looked all round her, seeing no help. 'Rachael, we must lose not a

  moment. We must go in different directions, seeking aid. You

  shall go by the way we have come, and I will go forward by the

  path. Tell any one you see, and every one what has happened.

  Think of Stephen, think of Stephen!'

  She knew by Rachael's face that she might trust her now. And after

  standing for a moment to see her running, wringing her hands as she

  ran, she turned and went upon her own search; she stopped at the

  hedge to tie her shawl there as a guide to the place, then threw

  her bonnet aside, and ran as she had never run before.

  Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven's name! Don't stop for breath. Run,

  run! Quickening herself by carrying such entreaties in her

  thoughts, she ran from field to field, and lane to lane, and place

  to place, as she had never run before; until she came to a shed by

  an engine-house, where two men lay in the shade, asleep on straw.

  First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and

  breathless as she was, what had brought her there, were

  difficulties; but they no sooner understood her than their spirits

  were on fire like hers. One of the men was in a drunken slumber,

  but on his comrade's shouting to him that a man had fallen down the

  Old Hell Shaft, he started out to a pool of dirty water, put his

  head in it, and came back sober.

  With these two men she ran to another half-a-mile further, and with

  that one to another, while they ran elsewhere. Then a horse was

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  found; and she got another man to ride for life or death to the

  railroad, and send a message to Louisa, which she wrote and gave

  him. By this time a whole village was up: and windlasses, ropes,

  poles, candles, lanterns, all things necessary, were fast

  collecting and being brought into one place, to be carried to the

  Old Hell Shaft.

  It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying

  in the grave where he had been buried alive. She could not bear to

  remain away from it any longer - it was like deserting him - and

  she hurried swiftly back, accompanied by half-a-dozen labourers,

  including the drunken man whom the news had sobered, and who was

  the best man of all. When they came to the Old Hell Shaft, they

  found it as lonely as she had left it. The men called and listened

  as she had done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled

  how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements

  they wanted should come up.

  Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves,

  every whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought

  it was a cry at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over

  it, and no sound arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass,

  waiting and waiting. After they had waited some time, straggling

  people who had heard of the accident began to come up; then the

  real help of implements began to arrive. In the midst of this,

  Rachael returned; and with her party there was a surgeon, who

  brought some wine and medicines. But, the expectation among the

  people that the man would be found alive was very slight indeed.

  There being now people enough present to impede the work, the

  sobered man put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there

  by the general consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell

  Shaft, and appointed men to keep it. Besides such volunteers as

  were accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachael were at first

  permitted within this ring; but, later in the day, when the message

  brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa, and Mr.

  Bounderby, and the whelp, were also there.

  The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first

  sat down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men to

  descend securely was rigged with poles and ropes. Difficulties had

  arisen in the construction of this machine, simple as it was;

  requisites had been found wanting, and messages had had to go and

  return. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of the bright

  autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent down to try the air,

  while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together,

  attentively watching it: the man at the windlass lowering as they

  were told. The candle was brought up again, feebly burning, and

  then some water was cast in. Then the bucket was hooked on; and

  the sobere
d man and another got in with lights, giving the word

  'Lower away!'

  As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked,

  there was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women

  looking on, that came as it was wont to come. The signal was given

  and the windlass stopped, with abundant rope to spare. Apparently

  so long an interval ensued with the men at the windlass standing

  idle, that some women shrieked that another accident had happened!

  But the surgeon who held the watch, declared five minutes not to

  have elapsed yet, and sternly admonished them to keep silence. He

  had not well done speaking, when the windlass was reversed and

  worked again. Practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as

  it would if both workmen had been coming up, and that only one was

  returning.

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  The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled

  upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the

  pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the

  grass. There was an universal cry of 'Alive or dead?' and then a

  deep, profound hush.

  When he said 'Alive!' a great shout arose and many eyes had tears

  in them.

  'But he's hurt very bad,' he added, as soon as he could make

  himself heard again. 'Where's doctor? He's hurt so very bad, sir,

  that we donno how to get him up.'

  They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon,

  as he asked some questions, and shook his head on receiving the

  replies. The sun was setting now; and the red light in the evening

  sky touched every face there, and caused it to be distinctly seen

  in all its rapt suspense.

  The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and

  the pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other small

  matters with him. Then the other man came up. In the meantime,

  under the surgeon's directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which

  others made a thick bed of spare clothes covered with loose straw,

  while he himself contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and

  handkerchiefs. As these were made, they were hung upon an arm of

  the pitman who had last come up, with instructions how to use them:

  and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his

  powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, and sometimes glancing

  down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was