A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club) (23 page)

‘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 springing 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.

 

 

[END OF INSTALMENT 12]

To 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 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 gentleman 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 dy’e 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. Dy’e 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 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 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 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 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 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 driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for the purpose – and with a pieman, 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 this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this 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 in 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 mortality 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 wenturs goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying again 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.’

‘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 are going out to-night?’ 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 to-morrow,’ 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 unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story.

‘And mind you!’ said Mr Cruncher. ‘No games to-morrow! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don’t.
I
’m your Rome, you know.’

Then he began grumbling again:

‘With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don’t know how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles and drink here, by your flopping 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?’