 CHAPTER VII WELL-PUNTING Before the ring formed round the old hell-shaft was broken, one figure had disappeared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not stood near Louisa, who held her father's arm, but in a retired place by themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to the couch, Sissy, attentive to all that had happened, slipped behind that wicked shadow, a sight in the horror of his face if there had been eyes there for any sight but one, and whispered in his ear. Without turning his head he conferred with her a few moments and vanished. The dust, the well, had gone out of the circle before the people moved. When the father reached home he sent a message to Mr. Bounderby's, desiring his son to come to him directly. Their reply was that Mr. Bounderby having missed him in the crowd and seeing nothing of him since had supposed him to be at Stone Lodge. I believe, Father, said Louisa, he will not come back to town tonight. Mr. Gradgrind turned away and said no more. In the morning he went down to the bank himself as soon as it was opened, and seeing his son's place empty, he had not the courage to look in at first, went back along the street to meet Mr. Bounderby on his way there. To whom he said that, for reasons he would soon explain but entreated not then to be asked for, he had found it necessary to employ his son at a distance for a little while. Also that he was charged with the duty of vindicating Stephen Blackpool's memory and declaring the thief. Mr. Bounderby, quite confounded, stood stock still in the street after his father-in-law had left him, swelling like an immense soap-bubble without its beauty. Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, and kept it all that day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped at his door he said without opening it, not now, my dears, in the evening. On their return in the evening he said, I am not able yet, to-morrow. He ate nothing all day and had no candle after dark and they heard him walking to and fro late at night. But in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the usual hour and took his usual place at the table. Aged and bent he looked and quite bowed down and yet he looked a wiser man and a better man than in the days when in this life he wanted nothing but facts. Before he left the room he appointed a time for them to come to him and so with his gray head drooping went away. Dear father said Louisa when they kept their appointment, you have three young children left. They will be different. I will be different yet with Heaven's help. She gave her hand to Sissy as if she meant with her help too. Your wretched brother said Mr. Gradgrind, do you think he had planned this robbery when he went with you to the lodging? I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money very much and had spent a good deal. The poor man being about to leave the town it came into his evil brain to cast suspicion on him. I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat there, father, for I asked him to go there with me. The visit did not originate with him. He had some conversation with the poor man. Did he take him aside? He took him out of the room. I asked him afterwards why he had done so and he made a plausible excuse, but since last night, father, and when I remember the circumstances by its light, I am afraid I can imagine too truly what passed between them. Let me know, said her father, if your thoughts present your guilty brother in the dark, the same dark view as mine. I fear, father, hesitated Louisa, that he must have made some representation to Stephen Blackpool, perhaps in my name, perhaps in his own, which induced him to do in good faith and honesty what he had never done before, and to wait about the bank those two or three nights before he left town. Too plain, returned the father, too plain. He shaded his face and remained silent for some moments, recovering himself, he said, and now how is he to be found? How is he to be saved from justice? In the few hours that I can possibly allow to elapse before I publish the truth, how is he to be found by us and only by us? Ten thousand pounds could not affect it. Sissy has affected it, father. He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy in his house, and said in a tone of softened gratitude and grateful kindness, It is always you, my child. We had our fears, Sissy explained, glancing at Louisa, before yesterday, and when I saw you brought to the side of the litter last night and heard what passed, being close to Rachel all the time, I went to him when no one saw and said to him, Don't look at me. See where your father is. Escape at once for his sake and your own. He was in a tremble before I whispered to him, and he started and trembled more then and said, Where can I go? I have very little money and I don't know who will hide me. I thought of father's old circus. I have not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at this time of year, and I read of him in a paper only the other day. I told him to hurry there and tell his name and ask Mr. Sleary to hide him till I came. I'll get to him before the morning, he said, and I saw him shrink away among the people. Thank heaven! exclaimed his father. He may be got abroad yet. It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy had directed him was within three hours' journey of Liverpool, whence he could be swiftly dispatched to any part of the world. But caution being necessary in communicating with him, for there was a greater danger every moment of his being suspected now, and nobody could be sure at heart but that Mr. Boundary himself in a bullying vein of public zeal might play a Roman part. It was consented that Sissy and Louisa should repair to the place in question by a secure discourse alone, and that the unhappy father, setting forth in an opposite direction, should get round to the same borne by another and wider route. It was further agreed that he should not present himself to Mr. Sleary lest his intention should be mistrusted, or the intelligence of his arrival should cause his son to take flight anew, but that the communication should be left to Sissy and Louisa to open, and that they should inform the cause of so much misery and disgrace of his father's being at hand and of the purpose for which they had come. When these arrangements had been well considered and were fully understood by all three, it was time to begin to carry them into execution. Early in the afternoon Mr. Gragrind walked direct from his own house into the country, to be taken up on the line by which he was to travel, and at night the remaining two set forth upon their different course, encouraged by not seeing any face they knew. The two traveled all night, except when they were left for odd numbers of minutes at branch places, up illimitable flights of steps or downwells, which was the only variety of those branches, and early in the morning were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two from the town they sought. From this dismal spot they were rescued by a savage old postillian, who happened to be up early, kicking a horse in a fly, and so they were smuggled into the town by all the back lanes where the pigs lived, which, although not a magnificent or even savory approach, was, as is usual in such cases, the legitimate highway. The first thing they saw on entering the town was the skeleton of Sleery Circus. The company had departed for another town more than 20 miles off, and had opened there last night. The connection between the two places was by a hilly turnpike road, and the traveling on that road was very slow. Though they took but a hasty breakfast and no rest, which it would have been in vain to seek under such anxious circumstances, it was noon before they began to find the bills of Sleery's horse riding on barns and walls, and one o'clock when they stopped in the marketplace. A grand morning performance by the riders, commencing at that very hour, was in course of announcement by the bellmen as they set their feet upon the stones of the street. Sissy recommended that, to avoid making inquiries and attracting attention in the town, they should present themselves to pay at the door. If Mr. Sleery were taking the money, he would be sure to know her, and would proceed with discretion. If he were not, he would be sure to see them inside, and, knowing what he had done with the fugitive, would proceed with discretion still. Therefore they repaired with fluttering hearts to the well-remembered booth. The flag with the inscription Sleery's horse riding was there, and the gothic niche was there, but Mr. Sleery was not there. Master Kitterminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received by the wildest credulity as cupid any more, had yielded to the invincible force of circumstances and his beard, and in the capacity of a man who made himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the exchequer, having also a drum in reserve on which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous forces. In the extreme sharpness of his lookout for base coin, Mr. Kitterminster so at present situated, never saw anything but money, so Sissy passed him unrecognized, and they went in. The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse stenciled with black spots, was twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as it is the favorite recreation of that monarch to do. Sissy, though well acquainted with his royal line, had no personal knowledge of the present Emperor, and his reign was peaceful. Ms. Josephine Sleary, in her celebrated graceful equestrian Tyrolean Flower Act, was then announced by a new clown, who humorously said, Cauliflower Act, and Mr. Sleary appeared, leading her in. Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the clown with his long whiplash, and the clown had only said, If you do it again, I'll throw the horse at you! When Sissy was recognized, both by father and daughter. But they got through the act with great self-possession, and Mr. Sleary, saving for the first instant, conveyed no more expression into his locomotive eye than into his fixed one. The performance seemed a little long to Sissy and Louisa, particularly when it stopped to afford the clown an opportunity of telling Mr. Sleary, who said, Indeed, sir, to all his observations in the calmest way, and with his eye on the house. About two legs, sitting on three legs, looking at one leg, when in came four legs, laid hold of one leg, and up got two legs, caught hold of three legs, and threw him at four legs, who ran away with one leg. Four, although an ingenious allegory relating to a butcher, a three-legged stool, a dog, and a leg of mutton, this narrative consumed time, and they were in great suspense. At last, however, little fair-haired Josephine made her curtsy and made great applause, and the clown, left alone in the ring, had just warmed himself and said, Now, I'll have a turn! When Sissy was touched on the shoulder and beckoned out. She took Louisa with her, and they were received by Mr. Sleary in a very little private apartment, with Kansas sides, a grass floor, and a wooden ceiling, all a slant, on which the box company stamped their approbation, as if they were coming through. To see oh ye, said Mr. Sleary, who had brandy and water at hand, it doth me good to see you. You with all with a favoured with us, and you've done a credit, since the old times I'm sure. You must see our people, my dear, before we speak of business, or they'll break their hearts, especially the women. Here Josephine has been and got married to E.W.B. Childers, and the has got a boy, and though he's only three years old, he sticks on to any pony you can bring against him. He's named the Little Wonder of Scolastic Equitation, and if you don't hear of that boy at athlete, you'll hear of him at Paris, and you recollect cute a minster that was thought to be rather sweet upon yourself? Well, he's married to, married a widow, old enough to be his mother. She was tightrope, she was, and now she's nothing on account of fat. They've got two children, so were strong in the fairy business and the nursery dodge. If you was to see our children in the wood with their father and mother, both a dying on a horse, their uncle, a receiving of at the warth upon a horse, themselves both a go on a blackberry upon a horse, and the robins that come in to cover them with leaves upon a horse, you'd say it was the completeest thing that ever you set your eyes on. And you remember Emma Gordon, my dear, as was almost a mother to you? Of course you do, I needn't ask. Well, Emma, he lost her husband. He was throwed a heavy backfall off an elephant in a thought of a pagoda thing as the falton of the indy, and he never got the better of it, and he married a second time, married a cheethmonger, as fell in love with her from the front, and he the over-theor and makin' a fortune. These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath now, related with great heartiness and with a wonderful kind of innocence, considering what a bleary and brandy and watery old veteran he was. Afterwards he brought in Josephine and E. W. B. Childers, rather deeply lined in the jaws by daylight, and the little wonder of scholastic equitation, and in a word, all the company. Amazing creatures they were in Louise's eyes so white and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative of leg, but it was very agreeable to see them crowding about Sissy and very natural in Sissy to be unable to refrain from tears. There, now Thetheria hath kithed all the children and hugged all the women and taken hand all round with all the men, clear every one of you, and ring in the band for the second part. As soon as they were gone he continued in a low tone. Now, Thetheria, I don't ask to know any secret, but I suppose I may consider this to be Mithguia? This is his sister, yes. And to other unthed daughter, that's what I mean. Hope I see you well, Mith, and I hope the sky is well. My father will be here soon, said Louisa, anxious to bring him to the point. Is my brother safe? They fan found, he replied, I want you just to take a peep at the ring, Mith, through here. Thetheria, you know the dodget, find a spyhole for yourself. They each looked through a chink in the boards. That's Jack the Giant Killer, piece of comic infant business, said Sleary. There's a property house, you see, for Jack to hide in. There's my clown with a saucepan lid and a spit for Jack's servant. And there's little Jack himself in a splendid suit of armor. There's two comic black servants, twice as big as the house, to stand by it and to bring it in and clear it. And the giant, a very expensive, basket one, he ain't done yet. Now, do you see them all? Yes, they both said. Look at him again, said Sleary. Look at him well. You see them all? Very good. Now Mith, he put a form for them to sit on. I have my opinion, and the squire your father hath hid. I don't want to know what your brother's been up to. It's better for me not to know. All I say is, the squire hath stood by Thetheria and I'll stand by the squire. Your brother is one of them black servants. Luisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly of satisfaction. If the fact, said Sleary, and even known it, you couldn't put your finger on him. Let the squire come. I shall keep your brother here after the performance. I can't undress him, nor yet what is paved off. Let the squire come here after the performance, or come here yourself after the performance, and you shall find your brother and have the whole plate to talk to him in. Never mind the look of him, at long hath heath well hid. Luisa, with many thanks, and with a lightened load, detained Mr. Sleary no longer then. She left her love for her brother with her eyes full of tears, and she and Sissy went away until later in the afternoon. Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too had encountered no one whom he knew, and was now sanguine with Sleary's assistance of getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night, as neither of the three could be his companion without almost identifying him under any disguise. He prepared a letter to a correspondent whom he could trust, beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost to North or South America, or any distant part of the world to which he could be the most speedily and privately dispatched. This done, they walked about, waiting for the circus to be quite vacated, not only by the audience, but by the company and by the horses. After watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit down by the side door, smoking, as if that were his signal that they might approach. Your fervent choir was his cautious salutation as they passed in. If you want me, you'll find me here. You mustn't mind your thun having a comic livery on. They all three went in, and Mr. Gradgrind sat down for lawn on the clown's performing chair in the middle of the ring. On one of the back benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of the place, sat the villainous welp, sulky to the last, whom he had the misery to call his son. In a preposterous coat like a Beatles, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent, in an immense westcoat, knee breeches, buckled shoes in a mad cocked hat, with nothing fitting him, in everything of course material, moth-eaten and full of holes, with seams in his black face where fear and heat had started through the greasy composition dobbed all over it. Anything so grimly, testably, ridiculously shameful as the welp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could, by any other means, have believed in, wayable and measurable fact though it was, and one of his modeled children had come to this. At first the welp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in remaining up there by himself. Yielding at length, if any concession so solemnly made, can be called yielding to the entreaties of Sissy, for Louisa he disowned altogether. He came down, bench by bench, until he stood in the sawdust on the verge of the circle, as far as possible within its limits from where his father sat. How was this done? asked the father. How was what done? moodily answered the son. This robbery! said the father, raising his voice upon the word. I forced the safe myself overnight, and shut it up a jar before I went away. I had had the key that was found made long before. I dropped it that morning that it might be supposed to have been used. I didn't take the money all at once. I pretended to put my balance away every night, but I didn't. And now you know all about it. If a thunderbolt had fallen on me, said the father, it would have shocked me less than this. I don't see why, grumbled the son. So many people are employed in situations of trust, so many people out of so many will be dishonest. I have heard you talk a hundred times of its being a law. How can I help laws? You have comforted others with such things, father. Comfort yourself. The father buried his face in his hands, and the son stood in his disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw, his hands with the black partly worn away inside, looking like the hands of a monkey. The evening was fast closing in, and from time to time he turned the whites of his eyes restlessly and impatiently toward his father. They were the only parts of his face that showed any life or expression. The pigment upon it was so thick. You must be got to Liverpool and sent abroad. I suppose I must. I—I can't be more miserable anywhere, whimpered the welp. Then I have been here ever since I can remember. That's one thing. Mr. Gradgrind went to the door and returned with slurry to whom he submitted the question how to get this deplorable object away. Why, I've been thinking of it, squire. There's not much time to lose, though you must say yes or no. It's over twenty miles to the rail. There the coast in half an hour that goes to the rail purpose to catch the mail train. That train will take him right to Liverpool. But look at him, groaned Mr. Gradgrind. Will any coach? I don't mean that he should go in the comic livery, said slurry. They the wood and I'll make a jothkin of him out of the wardrobe in five minutes. I don't understand, said Mr. Gradgrind. A jothkin! A codder! Make up your mind quick, squire. There'll be beer to feth. I've never met with nothing but beer if they'll ever clean a comic blackamore. Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented. Mr. slurry rapidly turned out from a box, a smockfrock, a felt hat, and other essentials. The welp rapidly changed clothes behind a screen of bays, and Mr. slurry rapidly brought beer and washed them white again. Now, said slurry, come along to the coat and jump up behind. I'll go with you there, and they'll suppose you're one of my people. They farewell to your family, and thoth the word, with which he delicately retired. Here is your letter, said Mr. Gradgrind. All necessary means will be provided for you. A tome! By repentance and better conduct for the shocking action which you have committed. And the dreadful consequences to which it has led. Give me your hand, my poor boy, and may God forgive you as I do. The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these words and their pathetic tone. But when Louise opened her arms, he repulsed her afresh. Not you. I don't want to have anything to say to you. Oh, Tom, Tom, do we end so? After all my love? After all your love, he returned obdurally. Pretty love, leaving old Bounderby to himself, and packing my best friend Mr. Harthouse off, and going home just when I was in the greatest danger. Pretty love that. Coming out with every word about our having gone to that place, when you saw the net was gathering round me, pretty love that. You have regularly given me up. You never cared for me. Tharps the word, said Mr. Sleary at the door. They all confusedly went out. Louise, a crying to him, that she forgave him, and loved him still, and that he would one day be sorry to have left her so, and glad to think of these her last words far away, when someone ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind and Sissy, who were both before him, while his sister yet clung to his shoulder, stopped and recoiled. For there was Bitzer. Out of breath his thin lips parted, his thin nostrils distended, his white eyelashes quivering his colorless face, more colorless than ever, as if he ran himself into a white heat, when other people ran themselves into a glow. There he stood, panting and heaving, as if he had never stopped since the night, now long ago, when he had run them down before. I'm sorry to interfere with your plans, said Bitzer, shaking his head, but I can't allow myself to be done by horse riders. I must have young Mr. Tom. He mustn't be got away by horse riders. Here he is in a smock-frock, and I must have him. By the collar, too, it seemed. For so he took possession of him. End of section 21. Recording by Joseph Ugeretz, Brooklyn, New York. www.mountabank.org Section 22 of Hard Times This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joseph Ugeretz. Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Section 22 Book 3, chapters 8 and 9. Chapter 8 Philosophical They went back into the booth, slurry shutting the door to keep intruders out. Bitzer, still holding the paralyzed culprit by the collar, stood in the ring, blinking at his old patron through the darkness of the twilight. Bitzer, said Mr. Gradgrindt, broken down and miserably submissive to him, have you a heart? The circulation, sir, returned Bitzer, smiling at the oddity of the question, couldn't be carried on without one. No man, sir, acquainted with the facts established by Harvey, relating to the circulation of the blood, can doubt that I have a heart. Is it accessible, cried Mr. Gradgrindt, to any compassionate influence? It is accessible to reason, sir, returned the excellent young man, and to nothing else. They stood looking at each other, Mr. Gradgrindt's face as white as the pursuers. What motive, even what motive in reason, can you have for preventing the escape of this wretched youth, said Mr. Gradgrindt, and crushing his miserable father, see his sister here? Pity us! Sir, returned Bitzer, in a very business-like and logical manner, since you ask me what motive I have in reason for taking young Mr. Tom back to Cogetown, it is only reasonable to let you know. I have suspected young Mr. Tom of this bank robbery from the first. I had had my eye upon him before that time, for I knew his ways. I have kept my observations to myself, but I have made them, and I have got ample proofs against him now, besides his running away, and besides his own confession, which I was just in time to overhear. I had the pleasure of watching your house yesterday morning and following you here. I am going to take young Mr. Tom back to Cogetown, in order to deliver him over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Bounderby will then promote me to young Mr. Tom's situation, and I wish to have his situation, sir, for it will be a rise to me, and will do me good. If this is solely a question of self-interest with you, Mr. Gradgrindt began, I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir, returned Bitzer, but I am sure you know that the whole social system is a question of self-interest. What you must always appeal to is a person's self-interest. It's your only hold. We are so constituted. I was brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are aware. What sum of money, said Mr. Gradgrindt, will you set against your expected promotion? Thank you, sir, return Bitzer, for hinting at the proposal, but I will not set any sum against it. Knowing that your clear head would propose that alternative, I have gone over the calculations in my mind, and I find that to compound a felony, even on very high terms indeed, would not be as safe and good for me as my improved prospects in the bank. Bitzer, said Mr. Gradgrindt, stretching out his hands as though he would have said, see how miserable I am. Bitzer, I have but one chance left to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, I entreat and pray you to give him the benefit of that remembrance. I really wonder, sir, rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative manner, to find you taking a position so untenable. My schooling was paid for. It was a bargain, and when I came away the bargain ended. It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything or to render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to heaven that way, it was not a political economical place, and we had no business there. I don't deny, added Bitzer, that my schooling was cheap, but that comes right, sir. I was made in the cheapest market and have to dispose of myself in the dearest. He was a little troubled here by Louisa and Sissy crying. Pray don't do that, said he. It's of no use doing that, it only worries. You seem to think that I have some animosity against young Mr. Tom, whereas I have none at all. I am only going on the reasonable grounds, I have mentioned, to take him back to Coke-town. If he was to resist, I should set up the cry of Stop Thief, but he won't resist. You may depend upon it. Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as immovably jammed in his head as his fixed one, had listened to these doctrines with profound attention here stepped forward. Squire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter knows perfectly well, better than you, because I said it to her that I didn't know what your son had done, and that I didn't want to know I said it was better not, though I only thought then that it was some sky-larking. However, this young man, having made it known to be a robbery of a bank wife, after a serious thing, must too serious a thing for me to compound, as this young man has very properly called it. Consequently, Squire, you mustn't quarrel with me if I take this young man's side and say he's right, and there's no help for it, but I tell you what I'll do, Squire, I'll drive your son and this young man over to the rail and prevent exposure here. I can't consent to do more, but I'll do that. Fresh lamentations from Louisa and deeper affliction on Mr. Gragrine's part followed this desertion of them by their last friend, but Sissi glanced at him with great attention, nor did she in her own breast misunderstand him. As they were all going out again he favored her with one slight roll of his movable eye, desiring her to linger behind. As he locked the door, he said excitedly, the Squire stood by you, Thioia, and now stand by the Squire. More than that, this is the prethioth, Rathko, and belongs to that bluntering cove that my people nearly pissed out a winder. It'll be a dark night. I've got a horse that'll do anything but speak. I've got a pony that'll go 15 mile an hour with Childith's driving of him. I've got a dog that'll keep man to one place four and 20 hours. Get a word with the young Squire. Tell him, when he sees our horse, begin to dance, not to be afraid of being spilt, but to look out for a pony gig coming up. Tell him, when he sees that gig clothed by, to jump down, and it'll take him off at a rattlin' pace. If my dog let this young man stir a peg on foot, I give him leave to go, and if my horse ever stirs from that spot where he begins a damping, till the morning, I don't know him. Tharps the word. The word was so sharp that in 10 minutes Mr. Childers, sauntering about the marketplace in a pair of slippers, had his cue, and Mr. Sleary's equipage was ready. It was a fine sight to behold the learned dog barking round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him with his one practicable eye that Bitzer was the object of his particular attentions. Soon after dark they all three got in, and started. The learned dog, a formidable creature, already pinning Bitzer with his eye and sticking close to the wheel on his side that he might be ready for him in the event of his showing the slightest disposition to a light. The other three sat up in the inn all night in great suspense. At eight o'clock in the morning Mr. Sleary and the dog reappeared both in high spirits. All right, squire, said Mr. Sleary, your thun may be aboard a thip by this time. Childers took him off, an hour and a half after we left their last night. The horse damped the polka till he was deadbeat. He would have waltzed if he hadn't been in harness. And then I gave him the word, he went to sleep comfortable. When that pretious young wrath go thettied go forward a foot, the dog hung on to his neck hankerture with all four legs in the air, and pulled him down and rolled him over though he'd come back into the drag. And there he fell till I turned the horse's head at half past six this morning. Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of course, and hinted as delicately as he could at a handsome remuneration and money. I don't want money myself, squire, but Childer is a family man and if you was to like to offer him a five pound note, it might not be unacceptable. Likewise, if you were to stand a collar for the dog or a or a thet of bells for the horse, I'd be very glad to take them. Brandy and water I always take. He had already called for a glass and now called for another. If you wouldn't think it going too far, squire, to make a little spread for the company, at about three and thick the head, not reckoning loath, it would make them happy. All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind very willingly undertook to render. Though he thought them far too slight, he said, for such a service. Very well, squire, then, if you'll only give a horse-riding a a bespeak whenever you can, you're more than balanced the account. Now, squire, if your daughter will excuse me, I would like one parting word with you. Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room. Mr. Sleary, stirring and drinking as Brandy and water as he stood, went on. Squire, you don't need to be told that Dogh is wonderful animals. Their instinct, said Mr. Gradgrind, is surprising. Whatever you call it, and I'm blest, if I know what to call it, said Sleary, it is astonishing. The way and with a Dogh will find you, the distant he'll come. His scent, said Mr. Gradgrind, being so fine. I'm blest if I know what to call it, repeated Sleary, shaking his head, but I have had Dogh find me, Squire, in a way that made me think whether that Dogh hadn't gone to another Dogh, and said, you don't happen to know a person of the name of Sleary, do you? Person of the name of Sleary in the Hawthriding way? Stout man? Game eye? And whether that Dogh mightn't have said, well, I can't say I know him myself, but I know a Dogh that I think would be likely to be acquainted with him. And whether that Dogh mightn't have thought it over and said, Sleary, Sleary, oh yes, to be sure, a friend of mine mentioned him to me at one time. I can get you his address directly. In consequent of my being a fore the public and going about Thomath, you see, there must be a number of Dogh acquainted with me, Squire, that I don't know. Mr. Gradgrine seemed to be quite confounded by this speculation. Anyway, said Sleary, after putting his lips to his brandy and water, is 14 months ago, Squire, since we was at Thester. We was getting up our children in the wood one morning when they come into our ring by the stage door, a Dogh. He had traveled a long way, he was in a very bad condition. He was lame and pretty well blind. He went round to our children, one after another, as if he was a seeking for a child he knowed. And then he come to me and throwed himself up behind and stood on his two forelegs, weak as he was, and then he wagged his tail and died. Squire, that Dogh was Marylegh. Sissy's father's Dogh. The theliath father's old Dogh. Now, Squire, I can take my oath from my knowledge of that Dogh that that man was dead and buried before that Dogh came back to me. Joth Fene and Childeth and me talked it over a long time whether I should write or not, but we agreed no. There is nothing comfortable to tell. Why unthettle her mind and make her unhappy? Though whether her father bathely deterred her or whether he broke its own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him, never will be known now. Squire, no, no, till, not till we know how the Dogh findeth us out. She keeps the bottle that he sent her for to this hour, and she will believe in his affection to the last moment of her life, said Mr. Gradrind. It seemed to present two things to a person Donut. Squire, said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down into the depths of his brandy and water. One, that there is a love in the world, not all self-interest, after all, but something very different. Tother, that it batheth a way of its own of calculating or not calculating, with some how or another is at least as hard to give a name to at the wave of the Dogh fit. Mr. Gradrind looked out of window and made no reply. Mr. Sleary emptied his glass and recalled the ladies. Thithilia, my dear, kiss me and goodbye. Miss Squire, to see you treating of her like a sister, and a sister that you trust and honor with all your heart and more is a very pretty thing to me. I hope your brother may live to be better deserving of you and a greater comfort to you. Squire, take hands, first and last. Don't be cross with us, poor Vagabond. People must be amused. They can't be all with a learning, nor yet they can't be all with a working. They ain't made for it. You must have us, Squire. Do the right thing, and the kind thing, too, and make the best of us, not the worst. And I never thought before, said Mr. Sleary, putting his head in at the door again to say it, that I was so much of a cackler. Chapter 9 Final It is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer before the blane blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsett had audaciously anticipated him and presumed to be wiser than he. In appeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption on the part of a woman in her dependent position over and over in his mind until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female to have it in his power to say she was a woman of family and wanted to stick to me but I wouldn't have it and got rid of her would be to get the utmost possible amount of crowning glory out of the connection and at the same time to punish Mrs. Sparsett according to her desserts. Filled fuller than ever with this great idea Mr. Bounderby came into lunch and sat himself down in the dining room of former days where his portrait was. Mrs. Sparsett sat by the fire with her foot in the cotton stirrup little thinking whether she was posting. Since the Pegler affair this gentle woman had covered her pity for Mr. Bounderby with a veil of quiet melancholy and contrition. In virtue thereof it had become her habit to assume a woeful look which woeful look she now bestowed upon her patron. What's the matter now, ma'am? said Mr. Bounderby in a very short rough way. Praise her, returned Mrs. Sparsett. Do not bite my nose off. Bite your nose off, ma'am! repeated Mr. Bounderby. Your nose? meaning as Mrs. Sparsett conceived that it was too developed a nose for that purpose. After which offensive implication he cut himself a crust of bread and threw the knife down with a noise. Mrs. Sparsett took her foot out of her stirrup and said Mr. Bounderby, sir. Well, ma'am! retorted Mr. Bounderby. What are you staring at? May I ask, sir? said Mrs. Sparsett. Have you been ruffled this morning? Yes, ma'am. May I inquire, sir? pursued the injured woman whether I am the unfortunate cause of your having lost your temper? Now, I'll tell you what, ma'am! said Bounderby. I am not come here to be bullied. A female may be highly connected, but she can't be permitted to bother and badger a man in my position and I am not going to put up with it. Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary to get on for seeing that if he allowed of details he would be beaten. Mrs. Sparsett first elevated, then knitted her Coriolanian eyebrows, gathered up her work into its proper basket and rose. Sir, said she majestically, it is apparent to me that I am in your way at present. I will retire to my own apartment. Allow me to open the door, ma'am. Thank you, sir. I can do it for myself. You had better allow me, ma'am, said Bounderby passing her and getting his hand upon the lock because I can take the opportunity of saying a word to you before you go. Mrs. Sparsett, ma'am, I rather think you are cramped here. Do you know it appears to me that under my humble roof there is hardly opening enough for a lady of your genius in other people's affairs? Mrs. Sparsett gave him a look of the darkest scorn and said with great politeness, Really, sir? I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late affairs have happened, ma'am, said Bounderby, and it appears to my poor judgment, Oh, oh, pray, sir, Mrs. Sparsett interposed with sprightly cheerfulness. Don't disparage your judgment. Everybody knows how unerring Mr. Bounderby's judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of it. It must be the theme of general conversation. Disparage anything in yourself, but your judgment, sir, said Mrs. Sparsett, laughing. Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed. It appears to me, ma'am, I say that a different sort of establishment altogether would bring out a lady of your powers. Such an establishment as your relation, Lady Skadgers. Now, don't you think you might find some affairs there, ma'am, to interfere with? It never occurred to me before, sir, return, Mrs. Sparsett, but now you mention it should think it highly probable. Then suppose you try, ma'am, said Bounderby, laying an envelope with a check in it in her little basket. You can take your own time for going, ma'am, but perhaps in the meanwhile it will be more agreeable to a lady of your powers of mind to eat her meals by herself and not to be intruded upon. I really ought to apologize to you, being only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, for having stood in your light so long. Pray don't name it, sir, returned Mrs. Sparsett. If that portrait could speak, sir, but it has the advantage over the original of not possessing the power of committing itself and disgusting others, it would testify that a long period has elapsed, since I first habitually addressed it as the picture of a noodle. Nothing that a noodle does can awaken surprise or indignation, the proceedings of a noodle can only inspire contempt. Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsett, with her Roman features like a metal struck to commemorate her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully past him, and ascended the staircase. Mr. Bounderby closed the door and stood before the fire, projecting himself after his old explosive manner into his portrait and into futurity. Into how much of futurity he saw Mrs. Sparsett fighting out a daily fight at the points of all the weapons in the female armory, with the grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting lady-scadgers still laid up in bed with her mysterious leg and gobbling her insufficient income down by about the middle of every quarter in a mean little airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for two, but did he see more? Did he catch any glimpse of himself making a show of bitser to strangers as the rising young man so devoted to his master's great merits who had won Young Tom's place and had almost captured Young Tom himself in the times when by various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint reflections of his own image making a vain glorious will whereby five and twenty humbugs past five and fifty years of age each taking upon himself the name Josiah Bounderby of Coketown should forever dine in Bounderby Hall, forever lodge in Bounderby buildings, forever attend a Bounderby chapel, forever go to sleep under a Bounderby chaplain, forever be supported out of a Bounderby estate and forever nauseate all healthy stomachs with a vast amount of Bounderby Balderdash and Bluster? Had he any prescience of the day, five years to come, when Josiah Bounderby of Coketown was to die of a fit in the Coketown street and this same precious will was to begin his long career of quibble plunder false pretenses, vile example, little service, and much law? Probably not. Yet the portrait was to see it all out. Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day and in the same hour, sitting thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity did he see? Did he see himself a white-haired decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflexible theories to appointed circumstances, making his facts and figures subservient to faith open charity, and no longer trying to grind that heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight of himself, therefore much despised, by his late political associates? Did he see them, in the era of its being quite settled, that the national dustmen have only to do with one another and own no duty to an abstraction called a people, taunting the honourable gentleman with this and that and with what not five nights a week until the small hours of the morning? Probably he had that much foreknowledge, knowing his men. Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the fire as in days of yore, though with a gentler and a humbler face. How much of the future might arise before her vision? Broad sides in the streets, signed with her father's name, exonerating the late Stephen Blackpool weaver from misplaced suspicion, and publishing the guilt of his own son with such extenuation as his years and temptation he could not bring himself to add as education, might beseech, were of the present. So Stephen Blackpool's tombstone with her father's record of his death was almost of the present, for she knew it was to be. These things she could plainly see. But how much of the future? A working woman, Chris and Rachel, after a long illness once again appearing at the ringing of the factory bell, and passing to and fro at the set hours among the Coke-town hands, a woman of pensive beauty, always dressed in black but sweet tempered and serene and even cheerful, who of all the people in the place alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of her and crying to her. A woman working ever working, but content to do it, and preferring to do it as her natural lot until she should be too old to labor any more, did Louisa see this? Such a thing was to be. A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away writing on paper blotted with tears that her words had too soon come true, and that all the treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear face, and length this brother coming nearer home with hope of seeing her and being delayed by Jonas, and then a letter in a strange hand saying, He died in hospital, of fever, such a day, and died in penitence and love of you, his last word being your name. Did Louisa see these things? Such things were to be. Herself again a wife, a mother, lovingly watchful of her children, careful that they should have a childhood of the mind no less than a childhood of the body, as knowing it to be even a more beautiful thing, and a possession, any hoarded scrap of which, is a blessing, and happiness to the wisest. Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was never to be. But happy sissies, happy children loving her, all children loving her, she grown learned and childish lore thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised, trying hard to know her humbler fellow creatures and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show will be the writing on the wall. She holding this course is part of no fantastic vow or bond or brotherhood or sisterhood or pledge or covenant or fancy dress or fancy fare, but simply as a duty to be done. Did Louisa see these things of herself? These things were to be. Dear reader, it rests with you and me, whether in our two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be. We shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold. End of section 22. Recording by Joseph Ugeritz, Brooklyn, New York. www.mountabank.org End of Hard Times by Charles Dickens