was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much
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he every day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept
mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her.
“Be comforted!” he said, “I am not worth such feeling, Miss
Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low
habits that I scorn 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, though outwardly I shall be what you have
heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make to you,
is, that you will believe this of me.”
“I will, Mr. Carton.”
“My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you
of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison,
and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is
useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and
for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that
better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice
in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to
you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent
and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not
be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you—ties
that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you
so adorn—the dearest 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 spring up anew
at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would
give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”
He said, “Farewell!” said a last “God bless you!” and left her.
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Chapter XX
THE HONEST TRADESMAN
T o the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in
Fleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast
number and variety of objects in movement were every
day presented. Who could sit upon anything in Fleet Street during
the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two
immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun,
the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to
the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes
down!
With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two
streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been
on duty watching one stream—saving that Jerry had no
expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an
expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was
derived from the pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit
and past the middle term of life) from Tellson’s side of the tides to
the opposite shore. Brief as such companionship was in every
separate instance. Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so
interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the
honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts
bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent
purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed.
Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and
mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a
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public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and
looked about him.
It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds
were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general
were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his
breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been “flopping” in some
pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down Fleet
Street westward, attracted his attention. Looking that way, Mr.
Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was coming along,
and that there was popular objection to this funeral, which
engendered uproar.
“Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, “it’s
a buryin’.”
“Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry.
The young man uttered this exultant sound with mysterious
significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he
watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the
ear.
“What d’ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you
want to conwey to your own father, you young Rip! This boy is a
getting too many for me!” said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. “Him
and his hooroars! Don’t let me hear no more of you, or you shall
feel some more of me. D’ye hear?”
“I warn’t doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing his
cheek.
“Drop it then,” said Mr. Cruncher; “I won’t have none of your
no harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd.”
His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling
and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in
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which mourning coach there was only one mourner, dressed in the
dingy trappings that were considered essential to the dignity of
the position. The position appeared by no means to please him,
however, with an increasing rabble surrounding the coach,
deriding him, making grimaces at him, and incessantly groaning
and calling out: “Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!” with many
compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat.
Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr.
Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and became excited,
when a funeral passed Tellson’s. Naturally, therefore, a funeral
with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, and he asked
of the first man who ran against him:
“What is it, brother? What’s it about?”
“I don’t know,” said the man. “Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!”
He asked another man. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” returned the other man, clapping his hands to
his mouth, nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and
with the greatest ardour, “Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi-ies!”
At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case,
tumbled against him, and from this person he learned that the
funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly.
“Was He a spy?” asked Mr. Cruncher.
“Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. “Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old
Bailey Spi-i-ies!”
“Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which
he had assisted. “I’ve seen him. Dead, is he?”
“Dead as mutton,” returned the other, “and can’t be too dead.
Have ’em out, there! Spies! Pull ’em out, there! Spies!”
The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any
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idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly
repeating the suggestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em out,
mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop. On
the crowd’s opening the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out
of himself and was in their hands for a moment; but he was so
alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another moment
he was scouring away up by a by-street, after shedding his cloak,
hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and other
symbolical tears.
These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with
great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their
shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a
monster much dreaded. They had already got to the length of
opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter
genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination
amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much
needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and
the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen
out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by
any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these
volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed
his spiky head from the observation of Tellson’s, in the further
corner of the mourning coach.
The officiating undertakers made some protest against these
changes in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near,
and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in
bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the
protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started,
with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse—advised by the regular
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driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for
the purpose—and with a pie-man, also attended by his cabinet
minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, a popular
street character of the time, was impressed as an additional
ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand;
and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an
Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked.
Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and
infinite caricaturing 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
the fields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into
the burial-ground; finally, accomplished the interment of the
deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own
satisfaction.
The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the
necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, another
brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of
impeaching casual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking
vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive
persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in
the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and
maltreated. The transition to the sport of window-breaking, and
thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy and natural.
At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had been
pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm the
more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were
coming. Before the rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and
perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this
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was the usual progress of a mob.
Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had
remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with
the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. He
procured a pipe from a neighbouring public-house, and smoked it,
looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot.
“Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself his usual
way, “you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own
eyes that he was a young ’un and a straight made ’un.”
Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he
turned himself about, that he might appear before the hour of
closing, on his station at Tellson’s. Whether his meditations on
morality had touched his liver, or whether his general health had
been previously at all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little
attention to an eminent man, is not so much to the purpose, as
that he made a short call upon his medical adviser—a
distinguished surgeon—on his way back.
Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and
reported No job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient
clerks came out, the usual 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, on
entering. “If, as a honest tradesman, my wentures goes wrong
tonight, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying agin me, and I
shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.”
The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head.
“Why, you’re at it afore my face!” said Mr. Cruncher, with signs
of angry apprehension.
“I am saying nothing.”
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“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, but made use of them, as people not unfrequently
do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction.
“You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out
of his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large
invisible oyster out of his saucer. “Ah! I think so. I believe you.”
“You were going out tonight?” asked his decent wife, when he
took another bite.
“Yes, I am.”
“May I 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.”
“Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father?”
“Never you mind.”
“Shall you bring any fish home, father?”
“If I don’t, you’ll have short commons, tomorrow,” returned
that gentleman, shaking his head; “that’s questions enough for
you; I ain’t a going out, till you’ve been long a-bed.”
He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to
keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly
holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from
meditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view, he
urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the
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unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of
