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Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Chapter IX.
The Game Made
While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the
prisons were in the adjoining dark room,
speaking so low that not a sound was heard,
Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable
doubt and mistrust.
That honest tradesman's manner of receiving
the look, did not inspire confidence; he
changed the leg on which he rested, as
often as if he had fifty of those limbs,
and were trying them all; he examined his
finger-nails with a very questionable
closeness of attention; and whenever Mr.
Lorry's eye caught his, he was taken with
that peculiar kind of short cough requiring
the hollow of a hand before it, which is
seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity
attendant on perfect openness of character.
"Jerry," said Mr. Lorry.
"Come here."
Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with
one of his shoulders in advance of him.
"What have you been, besides a messenger?"
After some cogitation, accompanied with an
intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher
conceived the luminous idea of replying,
"Agicultooral character."
"My mind misgives me much," said Mr. Lorry,
angrily shaking a forefinger at him, "that
you have used the respectable and great
house of Tellson's as a blind, and that you
have had an unlawful occupation of an
infamous description.
If you have, don't expect me to befriend
you when you get back to England.
If you have, don't expect me to keep your
secret.
Tellson's shall not be imposed upon."
"I hope, sir," pleaded the abashed Mr.
Cruncher, "that a gentleman like yourself
wot I've had the honour of odd jobbing till
I'm grey at it, would think twice about
harming of me, even if it wos so--I don't
say it is, but even if it wos.
And which it is to be took into account
that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be
all o' one side.
There'd be two sides to it.
There might be medical doctors at the
present hour, a picking up their guineas
where a honest tradesman don't pick up his
fardens--fardens! no, nor yet his half
fardens--half fardens! no, nor yet his
quarter--a banking away like smoke at
Tellson's, and a cocking their medical eyes
at that tradesman on the sly, a going in
and going out to their own carriages--ah!
equally like smoke, if not more so.
Well, that 'ud be imposing, too, on
Tellson's.
For you cannot sarse the goose and not the
gander.
And here's Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos
in the Old England times, and would be to-
morrow, if cause given, a floppin' again
the business to that degree as is
ruinating--stark ruinating!
Whereas them medical doctors' wives don't
flop--catch 'em at it!
Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in
favour of more patients, and how can you
rightly have one without t'other?
Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with
parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and
wot with private watchmen (all awaricious
and all in it), a man wouldn't get much by
it, even if it wos so.
And wot little a man did get, would never
prosper with him, Mr. Lorry.
He'd never have no good of it; he'd want
all along to be out of the line, if he,
could see his way out, being once in--even
if it wos so."
"Ugh!" cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting,
nevertheless, "I am shocked at the sight of
you."
"Now, what I would humbly offer to you,
sir," pursued Mr. Cruncher, "even if it wos
so, which I don't say it is--"
"Don't prevaricate," said Mr. Lorry.
"No, I will _not_, sir," returned Mr.
Crunches as if nothing were further from
his thoughts or practice--"which I don't
say it is--wot I would humbly offer to you,
sir, would be this.
Upon that there stool, at that there Bar,
sets that there boy of mine, brought up and
growed up to be a man, wot will errand you,
message you, general-light-job you, till
your heels is where your head is, if such
should be your wishes.
If it wos so, which I still don't say it is
(for I will not prewaricate to you, sir),
let that there boy keep his father's place,
and take care of his mother; don't blow
upon that boy's father--do not do it, sir--
and let that father go into the line of the
reg'lar diggin', and make amends for what
he would have undug--if it wos so--by
diggin' of 'em in with a will, and with
conwictions respectin' the futur' keepin'
of 'em safe.
That, Mr. Lorry," said Mr. Cruncher, wiping
his forehead with his arm, as an
announcement that he had arrived at the
peroration of his discourse, "is wot I
would respectfully offer to you, sir.
A man don't see all this here a goin' on
dreadful round him, in the way of Subjects
without heads, dear me, plentiful enough
fur to bring the price down to porterage
and hardly that, without havin' his serious
thoughts of things.
And these here would be mine, if it wos so,
entreatin' of you fur to bear in mind that
wot I said just now, I up and said in the
good cause when I might have kep' it back."
"That at least is true," said Mr. Lorry.
"Say no more now.
It may be that I shall yet stand your
friend, if you deserve it, and repent in
action--not in words.
I want no more words."
Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as
Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the
dark room.
"Adieu, Mr. Barsad," said the former; "our
arrangement thus made, you have nothing to
fear from me."
He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over
against Mr. Lorry.
When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him
what he had done?
"Not much.
If it should go ill with the prisoner, I
have ensured access to him, once."
Mr. Lorry's countenance fell.
"It is all I could do," said Carton.
"To propose too much, would be to put this
man's head under the axe, and, as he
himself said, nothing worse could happen to
him if he were denounced.
It was obviously the weakness of the
position.
There is no help for it."
"But access to him," said Mr. Lorry, "if it
should go ill before the Tribunal, will not
save him."
"I never said it would."
Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire;
his sympathy with his darling, and the
heavy disappointment of his second arrest,
gradually weakened them; he was an old man
now, overborne with anxiety of late, and
his tears fell.
"You are a good man and a true friend,"
said Carton, in an altered voice.
"Forgive me if I notice that you are
affected.
I could not see my father weep, and sit by,
careless.
And I could not respect your sorrow more,
if you were my father.
You are free from that misfortune,
however."
Though he said the last words, with a slip
into his usual manner, there was a true
feeling and respect both in his tone and in
his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never
seen the better side of him, was wholly
unprepared for.
He gave him his hand, and Carton gently
pressed it.
"To return to poor Darnay," said Carton.
"Don't tell Her of this interview, or this
arrangement.
It would not enable Her to go to see him.
She might think it was contrived, in case
of the worse, to convey to him the means of
anticipating the sentence."
Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he
looked quickly at Carton to see if it were
in his mind.
It seemed to be; he returned the look, and
evidently understood it.
"She might think a thousand things," Carton
said, "and any of them would only add to
her trouble.
Don't speak of me to her.
As I said to you when I first came, I had
better not see her.
I can put my hand out, to do any little
helpful work for her that my hand can find
to do, without that.
You are going to her, I hope?
She must be very desolate to-night."
"I am going now, directly."
"I am glad of that.
She has such a strong attachment to you and
reliance on you.
How does she look?"
"Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful."
"Ah!" It was a long, grieving sound, like a
sigh--almost like a sob.
It attracted Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's
face, which was turned to the fire.
A light, or a shade (the old gentleman
could not have said which), passed from it
as swiftly as a change will sweep over a
hill-side on a wild bright day, and he
lifted his foot to put back one of the
little flaming logs, which was tumbling
forward.
He wore the white riding-coat and top-
boots, then in vogue, and the light of the
fire touching their light surfaces made him
look very pale, with his long brown hair,
all untrimmed, hanging loose about him.
His indifference to fire was sufficiently
remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance
from Mr. Lorry; his boot was still upon the
hot embers of the flaming log, when it had
broken under the weight of his foot.
"I forgot it," he said.
Mr. Lorry's eyes were again attracted to
his face.
Taking note of the wasted air which clouded
the naturally handsome features, and having
the expression of prisoners' faces fresh in
his mind, he was strongly reminded of that
expression.
"And your duties here have drawn to an end,
sir?" said Carton, turning to him.
"Yes. As I was telling you last night when
Lucie came in so unexpectedly, I have at
length done all that I can do here.
I hoped to have left them in perfect
safety, and then to have quitted Paris.
I have my Leave to Pass.
I was ready to go."
They were both silent.
"Yours is a long life to look back upon,
sir?" said Carton, wistfully.
"I am in my seventy-eighth year."
"You have been useful all your life;
steadily and constantly occupied; trusted,
respected, and looked up to?"
"I have been a man of business, ever since
I have been a man.
Indeed, I may say that I was a man of
business when a boy."
"See what a place you fill at seventy-
eight.
How many people will miss you when you
leave it empty!"
"A solitary old bachelor," answered Mr.
Lorry, shaking his head.
"There is nobody to weep for me."
"How can you say that?
Wouldn't She weep for you?
Wouldn't her child?"
"Yes, yes, thank God.
I didn't quite mean what I said."
"It _is_ a thing to thank God for; is it
not?"
"Surely, surely."
"If you could say, with truth, to your own
solitary heart, to-night, 'I have secured
to myself the love and attachment, the
gratitude or respect, of no human creature;
I have won myself a tender place in no
regard; I have done nothing good or
serviceable to be remembered by!' your
seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight
heavy curses; would they not?"
"You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they
would be."
Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire,
and, after a silence of a few moments,
said:
"I should like to ask you:--Does your
childhood seem far off?
Do the days when you sat at your mother's
knee, seem days of very long ago?"
Responding to his softened manner, Mr.
Lorry answered:
"Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my
life, no.
For, as I draw closer and closer to the
end, I travel in the circle, nearer and
nearer to the beginning.
It seems to be one of the kind smoothings
and preparings of the way.
My heart is touched now, by many
remembrances that had long fallen asleep,
of my pretty young mother (and I so old!),
and by many associations of the days when
what we call the World was not so real with
me, and my faults were not confirmed in
me."
"I understand the feeling!" exclaimed
Carton, with a bright flush.
"And you are the better for it?"
"I hope so."
Carton terminated the conversation here, by
rising to help him on with his outer coat;
"But you," said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the
theme, "you are young."
"Yes," said Carton.
"I am not old, but my young way was never
the way to age.
Enough of me."
"And of me, I am sure," said Mr. Lorry.
"Are you going out?"
"I'll walk with you to her gate.
You know my vagabond and restless habits.
If I should prowl about the streets a long
time, don't be uneasy; I shall reappear in
the morning.
You go to the Court to-morrow?"
"Yes, unhappily."
"I shall be there, but only as one of the
crowd.
My Spy will find a place for me.
Take my arm, sir."
Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs
and out in the streets.
A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry's
destination.
Carton left him there; but lingered at a
little distance, and turned back to the
gate again when it was shut, and touched
it.
He had heard of her going to the prison
every day.
"She came out here," he said, looking about
him, "turned this way, must have trod on
these stones often.
Let me follow in her steps."
It was ten o'clock at night when he stood
before the prison of La Force, where she
had stood hundreds of times.
A little wood-sawyer, having closed his
shop, was smoking his pipe at his shop-
door.
"Good night, citizen," said Sydney Carton,
pausing in going by; for, the man eyed him
inquisitively.
"Good night, citizen."
"How goes the Republic?"
"You mean the Guillotine.
Not ill.
Sixty-three to-day.
We shall mount to a hundred soon.
Samson and his men complain sometimes, of
being exhausted.
Ha, ha, ha!
He is so droll, that Samson.
Such a Barber!"
"Do you often go to see him--"
"Shave?
Always.
Every day.
What a barber!
You have seen him at work?"
"Never."
"Go and see him when he has a good batch.
Figure this to yourself, citizen; he shaved
the sixty-three to-day, in less than two
pipes!
Less than two pipes.
Word of honour!"
As the grinning little man held out the
pipe he was smoking, to explain how he
timed the executioner, Carton was so
sensible of a rising desire to strike the
life out of him, that he turned away.
"But you are not English," said the wood-
sawyer, "though you wear English dress?"
"Yes," said Carton, pausing again, and
answering over his shoulder.
"You speak like a Frenchman."
"I am an old student here."
"Aha, a perfect Frenchman!
Good night, Englishman."
"Good night, citizen."
"But go and see that droll dog," the little
man persisted, calling after him.
"And take a pipe with you!"
Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when
he stopped in the middle of the street
under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his
pencil on a scrap of paper.
Then, traversing with the decided step of
one who remembered the way well, several
dark and dirty streets--much dirtier than
usual, for the best public thoroughfares
remained uncleansed in those times of
terror--he stopped at a chemist's shop,
which the owner was closing with his own
hands.
A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a
tortuous, up-hill thoroughfare, by a small,
dim, crooked man.
Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he
confronted him at his counter, he laid the
scrap of paper before him.
"Whew!" the chemist whistled softly, as he
read it.
"Hi! hi! hi!"
Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist
said:
"For you, citizen?"
"For me."
"You will be careful to keep them separate,
citizen?
You know the consequences of mixing them?"
"Perfectly."
Certain small packets were made and given
to him.
He put them, one by one, in the breast of
his inner coat, counted out the money for
them, and deliberately left the shop.
"There is nothing more to do," said he,
glancing upward at the moon, "until to-
morrow.
I can't sleep."
It was not a reckless manner, the manner in
which he said these words aloud under the
fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more
expressive of negligence than defiance.
It was the settled manner of a tired man,
who had wandered and struggled and got
lost, but who at length struck into his
road and saw its end.
Long ago, when he had been famous among his
earliest competitors as a youth of great
promise, he had followed his father to the
grave.
His mother had died, years before.
These solemn words, which had been read at
his father's grave, arose in his mind as he
went down the dark streets, among the heavy
shadows, with the moon and the clouds
sailing on high above him.
"I am the resurrection and the life, saith
the Lord: he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall
never die."
In a city dominated by the axe, alone at
night, with natural sorrow rising in him
for the sixty-three who had been that day
put to death, and for to-morrow's victims
then awaiting their doom in the prisons,
and still of to-morrow's and to-morrow's,
the chain of association that brought the
words home, like a rusty old ship's anchor
from the deep, might have been easily
found.
He did not seek it, but repeated them and
went on.
With a solemn interest in the lighted
windows where the people were going to
rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of
the horrors surrounding them; in the towers
of the churches, where no prayers were
said, for the popular revulsion had even
travelled that length of self-destruction
from years of priestly impostors,
plunderers, and profligates; in the distant
burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon
the gates, for Eternal Sleep; in the
abounding gaols; and in the streets along
which the sixties rolled to a death which
had become so common and material, that no
sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever
arose among the people out of all the
working of the Guillotine; with a solemn
interest in the whole life and death of the
city settling down to its short nightly
pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the
Seine again for the lighter streets.
Few coaches were abroad, for riders in
coaches were liable to be suspected, and
gentility hid its head in red nightcaps,
and put on heavy shoes, and trudged.
But, the theatres were all well filled, and
the people poured cheerfully out as he
passed, and went chatting home.
At one of the theatre doors, there was a
little girl with a mother, looking for a
way across the street through the mud.
He carried the child over, and before the
timid arm was loosed from his neck asked
her for a kiss.
"I am the resurrection and the life, saith
the Lord: he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall
never die."
Now, that the streets were quiet, and the
night wore on, the words were in the echoes
of his feet, and were in the air.
Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes
repeated them to himself as he walked; but,
he heard them always.
The night wore out, and, as he stood upon
the bridge listening to the water as it
splashed the river-walls of the Island of
Paris, where the picturesque confusion of
houses and cathedral shone bright in the
light of the moon, the day came coldly,
looking like a dead face out of the sky.
Then, the night, with the moon and the
stars, turned pale and died, and for a
little while it seemed as if Creation were
delivered over to Death's dominion.
But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to
strike those words, that burden of the
night, straight and warm to his heart in
its long bright rays.
And looking along them, with reverently
shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to
span the air between him and the sun, while
the river sparkled under it.
The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and
certain, was like a congenial friend, in
the morning stillness.
He walked by the stream, far from the
houses, and in the light and warmth of the
sun fell asleep on the bank.
When he awoke and was afoot again, he
lingered there yet a little longer,
watching an eddy that turned and turned
purposeless, until the stream absorbed it,
and carried it on to the sea.--"Like me."
A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened
colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his
view, floated by him, and died away.
As its silent track in the water
disappeared, the prayer that had broken up
out of his heart for a merciful
consideration of all his poor blindnesses
and errors, ended in the words, "I am the
resurrection and the life."
Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back,
and it was easy to surmise where the good
old man was gone.
Sydney Carton drank nothing but a little
coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed
and changed to refresh himself, went out to
the place of trial.
The court was all astir and a-buzz, when
the black sheep--whom many fell away from
in dread--pressed him into an obscure
corner among the crowd.
Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was
there.
She was there, sitting beside her father.
When her husband was brought in, she turned
a look upon him, so sustaining, so
encouraging, so full of admiring love and
pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for
his sake, that it called the healthy blood
into his face, brightened his glance, and
animated his heart.
If there had been any eyes to notice the
influence of her look, on Sydney Carton, it
would have been seen to be the same
influence exactly.
Before that unjust Tribunal, there was
little or no order of procedure, ensuring
to any accused person any reasonable
hearing.
There could have been no such Revolution,
if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not
first been so monstrously abused, that the
suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to
scatter them all to the winds.
Every eye was turned to the jury.
The same determined patriots and good
republicans as yesterday and the day
before, and to-morrow and the day after.
Eager and prominent among them, one man
with a craving face, and his fingers
perpetually hovering about his lips, whose
appearance gave great satisfaction to the
spectators.
A life-thirsting, cannibal-looking, bloody-
minded juryman, the Jacques Three of St.
Antoine.
The whole jury, as a jury of dogs
empannelled to try the deer.
Every eye then turned to the five judges
and the public prosecutor.
No favourable leaning in that quarter to-
day.
A fell, uncompromising, murderous business-
meaning there.
Every eye then sought some other eye in the
crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly; and
heads nodded at one another, before bending
forward with a strained attention.
Charles Evremonde, called Darnay.
Released yesterday.
Reaccused and retaken yesterday.
Indictment delivered to him last night.
Suspected and Denounced enemy of the
Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of
tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that
they had used their abolished privileges to
the infamous oppression of the people.
Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, in right
of such proscription, absolutely Dead in
Law.
To this effect, in as few or fewer words,
the Public Prosecutor.
The President asked, was the Accused openly
denounced or secretly?
"Openly, President."
"By whom?"
"Three voices.
Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of St.
Antoine."
"Good."
"Therese Defarge, his wife."
"Good."
"Alexandre Manette, physician."
A great uproar took place in the court, and
in the midst of it, Doctor Manette was
seen, pale and trembling, standing where he
had been seated.
"President, I indignantly protest to you
that this is a forgery and a fraud.
You know the accused to be the husband of
my daughter.
My daughter, and those dear to her, are far
dearer to me than my life.
Who and where is the false conspirator who
says that I denounce the husband of my
child!"
"Citizen Manette, be tranquil.
To fail in submission to the authority of
the Tribunal would be to put yourself out
of Law.
As to what is dearer to you than life,
nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as
the Republic."
Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke.
The President rang his bell, and with
warmth resumed.
"If the Republic should demand of you the
sacrifice of your child herself, you would
have no duty but to sacrifice her.
Listen to what is to follow.
In the meanwhile, be silent!"
Frantic acclamations were again raised.
Doctor Manette sat down, with his eyes
looking around, and his lips trembling; his
daughter drew closer to him.
The craving man on the jury rubbed his
hands together, and restored the usual hand
to his mouth.
Defarge was produced, when the court was
quiet enough to admit of his being heard,
and rapidly expounded the story of the
imprisonment, and of his having been a mere
boy in the Doctor's service, and of the
release, and of the state of the prisoner
when released and delivered to him.
This short examination followed, for the
court was quick with its work.
"You did good service at the taking of the
Bastille, citizen?"
"I believe so."
Here, an excited woman screeched from the
crowd: "You were one of the best patriots
there.
Why not say so?
You were a cannonier that day there, and
you were among the first to enter the
accursed fortress when it fell.
Patriots, I speak the truth!"
It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm
commendations of the audience, thus
assisted the proceedings.
The President rang his bell; but, The
Vengeance, warming with encouragement,
shrieked, "I defy that bell!" wherein she
was likewise much commended.
"Inform the Tribunal of what you did that
day within the Bastille, citizen."
"I knew," said Defarge, looking down at his
wife, who stood at the bottom of the steps
on which he was raised, looking steadily up
at him; "I knew that this prisoner, of whom
I speak, had been confined in a cell known
as One Hundred and Five, North Tower.
I knew it from himself.
He knew himself by no other name than One
Hundred and Five, North Tower, when he made
shoes under my care.
As I serve my gun that day, I resolve, when
the place shall fall, to examine that cell.
It falls.
I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen
who is one of the Jury, directed by a
gaoler.
I examine it, very closely.
In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has
been worked out and replaced, I find a
written paper.
This is that written paper.
I have made it my business to examine some
specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette.
This is the writing of Doctor Manette.
I confide this paper, in the writing of
Doctor Manette, to the hands of the
President."
"Let it be read."
In a dead silence and stillness--the
prisoner under trial looking lovingly at
his wife, his wife only looking from him to
look with solicitude at her father, Doctor
Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the
reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers
from the prisoner, Defarge never taking his
from his feasting wife, and all the other
eyes there intent upon the Doctor, who saw
none of them--the paper was read, as
follows.