Chapter: X. Two Promises


More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles
Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French
language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he
would have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with
young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a
living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for
its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in
sound English, and render them into sound English. Such masters 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 no ruined nobility had
dropped out of Tellson's ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a
tutor, whose attainments made the student's way unusually pleasant and
profitable, and as an elegant translator who brought something to his
work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became
known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, more-over, with the
circumstances of his country, and those were of ever-growing interest.
So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered.

In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor
to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, he
would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and
did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted.

A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he
read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a
contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek
and Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed in
London.

Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days
when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has
invariably gone one way--Charles Darnay's way--the way of the love of a
woman.

He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never
heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice;
he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was
confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for
him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination
at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long,
long, dusty roads--the solid stone chateau which had 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, disclosed to her the state of his heart.

That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a
summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation,
he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity
of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer
day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross.

He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The energy
which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated
their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a
very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength
of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was
sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the
exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never been
frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare.

He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with
ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at
sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand.

"Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your
return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were
both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due."

"I am 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--"

"Is well," said the Doctor, as he stopped short, "and your return will
delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but will
soon be home."

"Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her
being from home, to beg to speak to you."

There was a blank silence.

"Yes?" said the Doctor, with evident constraint. "Bring your chair here,
and speak on."

He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less
easy.

"I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here,"
so he at length began, "for some year and a half, that I hope the topic
on which I am about to touch may not--"

He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to stop him. When he
had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back:

"Is Lucie the topic?"

"She is."

"It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me
to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay."

"It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor
Manette!" he said deferentially.

There was another blank silence before her father rejoined:

"I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it."

His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it
originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles
Darnay hesitated.

"Shall I go on, sir?"

Another blank.

"Yes, go on."

"You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly
I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and
the 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, I love
her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!"

The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the
ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly,
and cried:

"Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!"

His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles
Darnay's ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had
extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter
so received it, and remained silent.

"I ask your pardon," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some
moments. "I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of it."

He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or
raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair
overshadowed his face:

"Have you spoken to Lucie?"

"No."

"Nor written?"

"Never."

"It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is
to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks
you."

He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it.

"I know," said Darnay, respectfully, "how can I fail to know, Doctor
Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between
you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so
belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it
can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and
child. I know, Doctor Manette--how can I fail to know--that, mingled
with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there
is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy
itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is
now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present
years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the
early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if
you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could
hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character than that
in which you are always with 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 in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her
own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted,
loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I
have known this, night and day, since I have known you in your home."

Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a
little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation.

"Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you
with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as
long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even
now feel, that to bring my love--even mine--between you, is to touch
your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her.
Heaven is my witness that I love her!"

"I believe it," answered her father, mournfully. "I have thought so
before now. I believe it."

"But, do not believe," said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice
struck with a reproachful sound, "that if my fortune were so cast as
that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time
put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a
word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I
should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at
a remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my
heart--if it ever had been there--if it ever could be there--I could not
now touch this honoured hand."

He laid his own upon it as he spoke.

"No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; like
you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like
you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and trusting
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, and friend; but to
come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be."

His touch still lingered on her father's hand. Answering the touch for a
moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of
his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the
conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle with that
occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread.

"You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank
you with all my heart, and will open all my heart--or nearly so. Have
you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?"

"None. As yet, none."

"Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once
ascertain that, with my knowledge?"

"Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I
might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow."

"Do you seek any guidance from me?"

"I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it
in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some."

"Do you seek any promise from me?"

"I do seek that."

"What is it?"

"I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well
understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her
innocent heart--do not think I have the presumption to assume so much--I
could retain no place in it against her love for her father."

"If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it?"

"I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor's
favour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason,
Doctor Manette," said Darnay, modestly but firmly, "I would not ask that
word, to save my life."

"I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as
well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and
delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one
respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her
heart."

"May I ask, sir, if you think she is--" As he hesitated, her father
supplied the rest.

"Is sought by any other suitor?"

"It is what I meant to say."

Her father considered a little before he answered:

"You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too,
occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these."

"Or both," said Darnay.

"I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You want
a promise from me. Tell me what it is."

"It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own
part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will
bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you
may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against
me. I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what I ask. The
condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to
require, I will observe immediately."

"I give the promise," said the Doctor, "without any condition. I believe
your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. I
believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties
between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me
that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you.
If there were--Charles Darnay, if there were--"

The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined as
the Doctor spoke:

"--any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever,
new or old, against the man she really loved--the direct responsibility
thereof not lying on his head--they should all be obliterated for her
sake. She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more to me
than wrong, more to me--Well! This is idle talk."

So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange
his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own
hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it.

"You said something to me," said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile.
"What was it you said to me?"

He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a
condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered:

"Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my
part. 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 that is, and
why I am in England."

"Stop!" said the Doctor of Beauvais.

"I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no
secret from you."

"Stop!"

For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for
another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay's lips.

"Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie
should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you
promise?"

"Willingly.

"Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she
should not see us together to-night. Go! God bless you!"

It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and
darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone--for
Miss Pross had gone straight up-stairs--and was surprised to find his
reading-chair empty.

"My father!" she called to him. "Father dear!"

Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his
bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at
his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her
blood all chilled, "What shall I do! What shall I do!"

Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at
his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of
her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down
together for a long time.

She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He
slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished
work, were all as usual.





XI. A Companion Picture


"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."

Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before,
and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making
a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver's papers before the setting in
of the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver
arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of until
November should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, and
bring grist to the mill again.

Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much
application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull him
through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded
the towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled
his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at
intervals for the last six hours.

"Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?" said Stryver the portly, with
his hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he lay on
his back.

"I am."

"Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather
surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as
shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry."

"_Do_ you?"

"Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?"

"I don't feel disposed to say much. Who is she?"

"Guess."

"Do I know her?"

"Guess."

"I am not going to guess, at five o'clock in the morning, with my brains
frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you must ask
me to dinner."

"Well then, I'll tell you," said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting
posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you,
because you are such an insensible dog."

"And you," returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, "are such a
sensitive and poetical spirit--"

"Come!" rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, "though I don't prefer
any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), still
I am a tenderer sort of fellow than _you_."

"You are a luckier, if you mean that."

"I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of more--more--"

"Say gallantry, 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 cares more to
be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better how
to be agreeable, in a woman's society, than you do."

"Go on," said Sydney Carton.

"No; but before I go on," said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullying
way, "I'll have this out with you. You've been at Doctor Manette's house
as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your
moroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and
hangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you,
Sydney!"

"It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to
be ashamed of anything," returned Sydney; "you ought to be much obliged
to me."

"You shall not get off in that way," rejoined Stryver, shouldering the
rejoinder at him; "no, Sydney, it's my duty to tell you--and I tell you
to your face to do you good--that you are a devilish ill-conditioned
fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow."

Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed.

"Look at me!" said Stryver, squaring himself; "I have less need to make
myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances.
Why do I do it?"

"I never saw you do it yet," muttered Carton.

"I do it because it's politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! I
get on."

"You don't get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,"
answered Carton, with a careless air; "I wish you would keep to that. As
to me--will you never understand that I am incorrigible?"

He asked the question with some appearance of scorn.

"You have no business to be incorrigible," was his friend's answer,
delivered in no very soothing tone.

"I have no business to be, at all, that I know of," said Sydney Carton.
"Who is the lady?"

"Now, don't let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable,
Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendliness
for the disclosure he was about to make, "because I know you don't mean
half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I
make this little preface, because you once mentioned the young lady to
me in slighting terms."

"I did?"

"Certainly; and in these chambers."

Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend;
drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend.

"You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The young
lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness or
delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been a
little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you are not.
You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when I
think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion of
a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece of music
of mine, who had no ear for music."

Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers,
looking at his friend.

"Now you know all about it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care about
fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to
please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She
will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man,
and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her,
but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?"

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I be
astonished?"

"You approve?"

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I not approve?"

"Well!" said his friend Stryver, "you take it more easily than I fancied
you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you would
be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your
ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had
enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it; I
feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he 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 will always do me
credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, 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. You don't know the value of money,
you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor;
you really ought to think about a nurse."

The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as
big 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 the face,
you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of
you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, nor
understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some
respectable woman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way,
or lodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day. That's the
kind of thing for _you_. Now think of it, Sydney."

"I'll think of it," said Sydney.





XII. The Fellow of Delicacy


Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good
fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness known
to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental
debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as
well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange
at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two
before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it
and Hilary.

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly
saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly
grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--it was a
plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the
plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for
the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to
consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer
case could be.

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal
proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to
Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present
himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind.

Towards Soho, 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 was yet
on Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way
along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have
seen how safe and strong he was.

His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's and
knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr.
Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness
of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle
in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient
cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr.
Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron
bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything
under the clouds were a sum.

"Halloa!" said Mr. Stryver. "How do you do? I hope you are well!"

It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any
place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, that old clerks
in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though 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 its responsible waistcoat.

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would
recommend under the circumstances, "How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do
you do, sir?" and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner
of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shook
hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a
self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?" asked Mr. Lorry, in his
business character.

"Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I
have come for a private word."

"Oh indeed!" said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed
to the House afar off.

"I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the
desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to
be not half desk enough for him: "I am going to make an offer of myself
in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry."

"Oh dear me!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his
visitor dubiously.

"Oh dear me, sir?" repeated Stryver, drawing back. "Oh dear you, sir?
What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?"

"My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, of course, friendly and
appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and--in short,
my meaning is everything you could desire. But--really, you know, Mr.
Stryver--" Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest
manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally,
"you know there really is so much too much of you!"

"Well!" said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand,
opening his 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 that
end, and bit the feather of a pen.

"D--n it all, sir!" said Stryver, staring at him, "am I not eligible?"

"Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible!" said Mr. Lorry. "If you say
eligible, you are eligible."

"Am I not prosperous?" asked Stryver.

"Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous," said Mr. Lorry.

"And advancing?"

"If you come to advancing you know," said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be
able to make another admission, "nobody can doubt that."

"Then what 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.

"Then I think I wouldn't, if I was you."

"Why?" said Stryver. "Now, I'll put you in a corner," forensically
shaking a forefinger at him. "You are a man of business and bound to
have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go?"

"Because," said Mr. Lorry, "I wouldn't go on such an object without
having some 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's a man of business--a man of years--a man of experience--_in_
a Bank," said Stryver; "and having summed up three leading reasons for
complete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with his
head on!" Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have
been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off.

"When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and
when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of
causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young
lady, my good sir," said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, "the
young lady. The young lady goes before all."

"Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver, squaring his
elbows, "that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at
present in question is a mincing Fool?"

"Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver," said Mr. Lorry,
reddening, "that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady
from any lips; and that if I knew any man--which I hope I do not--whose
taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could
not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at
this desk, not even Tellson's should prevent my giving him a piece of my
mind."

The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver's
blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry;
Mr. Lorry's veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in
no better state now it was his turn.

"That is what I mean to tell you, sir," said Mr. Lorry. "Pray let there
be no mistake about it."

Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood
hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him the
toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying:

"This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not
to go up to Soho and offer myself--_my_self, Stryver of the King's Bench
bar?"

"Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?"

"Yes, I do."

"Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly."

"And all I can say of it is," laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, "that
this--ha, ha!--beats everything past, present, and to come."

"Now understand me," pursued Mr. Lorry. "As a man of business, I am
not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man of
business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried
Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and
of her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have
spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I
may not be right?"

"Not I!" said Stryver, whistling. "I can't undertake to find third
parties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense
in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It's
new to me, but you are right, I dare say."

"What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself--And
understand me, sir," said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, "I
will not--not even at Tellson's--have it characterised for me by any
gentleman breathing."

"There! I beg your pardon!" said Stryver.

"Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:--it might be
painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor
Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very
painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You
know the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand with
the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you
in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a
little new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear upon
it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its
soundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied
with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is
best spared. What do you say?"

"How long would you keep me in town?"

"Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the
evening, and come to your chambers afterwards."

"Then I say yes," said Stryver: "I won't go up there now, I am not so
hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to look
in to-night. Good morning."

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a
concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it
bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength
of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were
always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly
believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in
the empty office until they bowed another customer in.

The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have
gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than
moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to
swallow, he got it down. "And now," said Mr. Stryver, shaking his
forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, "my way
out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong."

It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found
great 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 the
purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of
the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was
altogether in an absent and preoccupied state.

"Well!" said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of
bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. "I have been to
Soho."

"To Soho?" repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. "Oh, to be sure! What am I
thinking of!"

"And I have no doubt," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was right in the
conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my
advice."

"I assure you," returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, "that I
am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father's
account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; let
us say no more about it."

"I don't understand you," said Mr. Lorry.

"I dare say not," rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and
final way; "no matter, no matter."

"But it does matter," Mr. Lorry urged.

"No it doesn't; I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there was
sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is
not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is
done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have
repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish
aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been
a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am
glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing
for me in a worldly point of view--it is hardly necessary to say I could
have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not
proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means
certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to
that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and
giddinesses of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or you
will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you,
I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account.
And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you,
and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do;
you were 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 of
showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head.
"Make the best of it, my dear sir," said Stryver; "say no more about 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. Stryver
was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling.





XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy


If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the
house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year,
and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he
cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing,
which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely
pierced by the light within him.

And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house,
and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night
he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no
transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary
figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams
of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture
in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time
brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable,
into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known
him more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself upon
it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that
neighbourhood.

On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal
that "he had thought better of that marrying matter") had carried his
delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the
City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health
for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod
those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became
animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention,
they took him to the Doctor's door.

He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had
never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some little
embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at
his face in the interchange of the first few common-places, she observed
a change in it.

"I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!"

"No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What
is to be expected of, or by, such profligates?"

"Is it not--forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips--a pity to
live no better life?"

"God knows it is a shame!"

"Then why not change it?"

Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that
there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as he
answered:

"It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall
sink lower, and be worse."

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The
table trembled in the silence that followed.

She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to
be so, without looking at her, and said:

"Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of
what I want to say to you. Will you hear me?"

"If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier,
it would make me very glad!"

"God bless you for your sweet compassion!"

He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily.

"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like
one 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 am
sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself."

"Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better--although in the
mystery of my own wretched heart I know better--I shall never forget
it!"

She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair
of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could have
been holden.

"If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the
love of the man you see before yourself--flung away, wasted, drunken,
poor creature of misuse as you know him to be--he would have been
conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would
bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you,
disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have
no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it cannot
be."

"Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall
you--forgive me again!--to a better course? Can I in no way repay your
confidence? I know this is a confidence," she modestly said, after a
little hesitation, and in earnest tears, "I know you would say this to
no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?"

He shook his head.

"To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very
little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that
you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have 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 shadows that I thought had
died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that
I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from
old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I
have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off
sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all
a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down,
but I wish you to know that you inspired it."

"Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!"

"No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite
undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the
weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me,
heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable in
its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no
service, idly burning away."

"Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy
than you were before you knew me--"

"Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if
anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse."

"Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events,
attributable to some influence of mine--this is what I mean, if I can
make it plain--can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for
good, with you, at all?"

"The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come
here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life,
the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world;
and that there was something left in me at this time which you could
deplore and pity."

"Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with
all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!"

"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself,
and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let
me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life
was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there
alone, and will be shared by no one?"

"If that will be a consolation to you, yes."

"Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?"

"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is
yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it."

"Thank you. And again, God bless you."

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door.

"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this
conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it
again. 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 good remembrance--and
shall thank and bless you for it--that my last avowal of myself was made
to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried
in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!"

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so
sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much 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 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.





XIV. The Honest Tradesman


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 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 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 by 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 bye-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 abed."

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?"

This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother to
perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above
all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal
function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent.

Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry
was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions,
obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with
solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one
o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair,
took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought
forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other
fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him
in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher,
extinguished the light, and went out.

Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to
bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he
followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the
court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning
his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the
door stood ajar all night.

Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his
father's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts,
walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his
honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not
gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and
the two trudged on together.

Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the
winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a
lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that so silently,
that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the
second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split
himself into two.

The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped
under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low
brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and
wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which
the wall--there, risen to some eight or ten feet high--formed one side.
Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that
Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well
defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate.
He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the
third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay
there a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands
and knees.

It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate: which he did,
holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and looking
in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass!
and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyard
that they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the church
tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not
creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to
fish.

They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent
appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew.
Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful
striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off,
with his hair as stiff as his father's.

But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not
only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They
were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for
the second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a
screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were
strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the
earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what
it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to
wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he
made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.

He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath,
it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirable
to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen
was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt
upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him
and hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to
shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it
was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the
roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them
like a dropsical boy's kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways
too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up
to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road,
and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was
incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy
got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then
it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every
stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on
his breast when he fell asleep.

From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after
daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the
family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry
inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the
ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of the
bed.

"I told you I would," said Mr. Cruncher, "and I did."

"Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!" his wife implored.

"You oppose yourself to the profit of the business," said Jerry, "and me
and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devil don't
you?"

"I try to be a good wife, Jerry," the poor woman protested, with tears.

"Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business? Is it
honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying your
husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?"

"You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry."

"It's enough for you," retorted Mr. Cruncher, "to be the wife of a
honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations
when he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeying
wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious
woman? If you're a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have
no more nat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has
of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you."

The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in
the honest tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying down
at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on
his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay
down too, and fell asleep again.

There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr.
Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron pot-lid
by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case
he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed
and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his
ostensible calling.

Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father's side
along sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different Young Jerry
from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and
solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day,
and his qualms were gone with the night--in which particulars it is not
improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and the City of London,
that fine morning.

"Father," said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep
at arm's length and to have the stool well between them: "what's a
Resurrection-Man?"

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, "How
should I know?"

"I thought you knowed everything, father," said the artless boy.

"Hem! Well," returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his
hat to give his spikes free play, "he's a tradesman."

"What's his goods, father?" asked the brisk Young Jerry.

"His goods," said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, "is a
branch of Scientific goods."

"Persons' bodies, ain't it, father?" asked the lively boy.

"I believe it is something of that sort," said Mr. Cruncher.

"Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I'm quite
growed 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 to dewelop
your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and
there's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit
for." As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance,
to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to
himself: "Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy will
yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother!"

 It is one year later and Charles Darnay has established himself as a higher teacher of the French language. He works hard and prospers from his diligence. One summer day he visits Dr. Manette with the intention of asking for Lucie's hand in marriage. The doctor has become an energetic and productive man and enthusiastically greets his friend. Dr. Manette grows serious when Darnay broaches the subject of marriage but encourages him to continue. Charles assures the doctor that he has no intention of separating him from his daughter and expresses his hope that the marriage would only bind father and daughter closer. The doctor agrees with these sentiments but when Darnay begins to speak of his past, admitting that his family name is not Darnay, the Doctor grows apprehensive and begs him to stop. He asks Charles to reveal his identity only if Lucie agrees to marry him and then not until the morning of the wedding. Darnay readily agrees. That evening Lucie returns to find her father working at his old prison occupation of shoemaking. She is distraught but when she calls to him he walks with her until he falls asleep. It is 5 o'clock the next morning and Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton are awake and still drinking following another night of work. Stryver very haughtily announces that he intends to ask for Lucie Manette's hand in marriage even though the pairing will bring him no financial gain. He accuses Carton of being a disagreeable fellow and asserts that he has been embarrassed by his friend's sullen moody behavior during their visits to the Manette's. Stryver goes on to express his belief that Miss Manette will benefit greatly from the marriage and that his proposal will be a piece of good fortune for her. Carton drinks heavily during Stryver's speech and offers no resistance to the proposal though his shrewd caustic responses belie a deeper emotional struggle than his manner suggests. Stryver finishes his speech by recommending that his friend marry a woman with money so as to provide for his otherwise dismal future. Mr. Stryver has no doubt that his proposal to Lucie will be successful. He resolves to ask for her hand immediately in order that they may begin preparations for the wedding. On his way to the Manette's he stops at Tellson's to share the good news with Mr. Lorry. The banker receives the news coldly and, much to Mr. Stryver's dismay offers no encouragement. In fact, his first response is "Oh dear me!" Although Mr. Lorry agrees with Mr. Stryver's various claims to worthiness he persists in withholding his approval. In his arrogance, Stryver is unable to discern any logical reason why Lucie would refuse to marry him. He asks Mr. Lorry if he thinks that Miss Manette is a fool. Mr. Lorry bristles at the implied offense to Miss Manette and suggests that in order to avoid painful, embarrassing situations for Doctor and Miss Manette; he should go to Soho that evening instead of Mr. Stryver to confer with the Doctor on the matter. He promises to bring an answer to Mr. Stryver immediately after his interview. Though Stryver can see no reason for the intermediary he accepts Mr. Lorry's offer. After Mr. Stryver leaves Tellson's, however, he considers the situation and realizes that Mr. Lorry would not express doubts if he did not believe them to be true. By the time the banker calls at his apartment to tell him the suit would not prosper, Mr. Stryver has already reconfigured the situation in his mind so that it is Miss Manette who has tried to seduce him in order to better herself and failed in the attempt. He even asserts that he might not have proposed in the first place. Mr. Lorry is dumbfounded and finds himself bustled out before he can formulate a response. It was true that Sydney Carton was always moody and morose when at the Manette's. Yet, many nights he would walk in their neighborhood for hours until the sun rose. Soon after Mr. Stryver tells him that he has reconsidered asking for Lucie's hand, Sydney Carton is seized by a sudden impulse and goes to the Manette house where he finds Lucie alone at her work. In very sorrowful terms he expresses to her his belief that his life will only get progressively worse and that if for a moment he could have believed that she loved him he would have known that he would only bring her misery. She implores him to believe that he can prosper and be happy and asks if without her love there is no other way that she can make him happy. He asserts that he is beyond redemption but that she has stirred something in him that he thought long since dead. Again, she asks if she can do anything for him and Carton answers that he would like her to remember that on this occasion he opened himself to her and that there was enough left of him that was worthy of pity. She sorrowfully agrees to keep his trust and he humbly thanks her. On his way out he tells her that he will never speak of their conversation again and will deny that it ever occurred should she broach the subject. She weeps at his display of emotion and he reminds her that in a couple of hours he will be so besotted as to not be worthy of such affection. Carton tells her that in the near future, when the ties of marriage and motherhood have enclosed her, to remember there is one such as himself who would give his life for her happiness. He departs. Jerry Cruncher and his son are in their regular spot outside of Tellson's watching the constant flow of traffic moving up and down Fleet Street. They see a funeral procession approaching and Jerry notices that the crowd is jeering and calling out that the man to be buried was a spy and that his body should be tumbled out of the casket. Jerry learns that the man's name was Roger Cly and that he was an Old Bailey informant. The crowd resolves to pull the body from the coach but someone in the crowd suggest instead accompanying the coach to its graveyard destination and the mob readily agrees. Jerry Cruncher slips into the crowd and accompanies them to the burial ground. After the casket is buried the mob goes on to dissolve into random acts of vandalism and drunkenness. Jerry Cruncher calmly smokes a pipe and makes a close survey of the low gates in the graveyard where the casket has been interred. That evening, amidst continuous appeals to his wife not to pray, he announces that he will be out on one of his nocturnal fishing trips that night. When his son asks about the rust on his hands and wonders aloud whether his father will return with any fish, his father sharply silences him. At one o'clock in the morning Jerry fetches some heavy tools from a locked cabinet and, believing the rest of the family to be asleep, exits the house. Young Jerry follows him and observes that two other men join his father before they reach a graveyard. Jerry the younger is horrified to observe that his father and his friends begin unearthing a fresh grave and though he initially flees in terror he returns to watch. Once the casket is unearthed, however, he flees home and falls into a troubled sleep. The next morning he knows that something must have gone wrong with the operation because his father is very upset and accuses his wife of praying against him. On the way to Tellson's young Jerry asks his father the meaning of the profession "Resurrection Man" and when his father haltingly tells him that it is a person who provides cadavers to doctors young Jerry announces that he would like to grow up to be a resurrection man. Jerry is noticeably proud of his son.

