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Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Chapter II.
The Grindstone
Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint
Germain Quarter of Paris, was in a wing of
a large house, approached by a courtyard
and shut off from the street by a high wall
and a strong gate.
The house belonged to a great nobleman who
had lived in it until he made a flight from
the troubles, in his own cook's dress, and
got across the borders.
A mere beast of the chase flying from
hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis
no other than the same Monseigneur, the
preparation of whose chocolate for whose
lips had once occupied three strong men
besides the cook in question.
Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men
absolving themselves from the sin of having
drawn his high wages, by being more than
ready and willing to cut his throat on the
altar of the dawning Republic one and
indivisible of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur's house
had been first sequestrated, and then
confiscated.
For, all things moved so fast, and decree
followed decree with that fierce
precipitation, that now upon the third
night of the autumn month of September,
patriot emissaries of the law were in
possession of Monseigneur's house, and had
marked it with the tri-colour, and were
drinking brandy in its state apartments.
A place of business in London like
Tellson's place of business in Paris, would
soon have driven the House out of its mind
and into the Gazette.
For, what would staid British
responsibility and respectability have said
to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank
courtyard, and even to a Cupid over the
counter?
Yet such things were.
Tellson's had whitewashed the Cupid, but he
was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the
coolest linen, aiming (as he very often
does) at money from morning to night.
Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of
this young Pagan, in Lombard-street,
London, and also of a curtained alcove in
the rear of the immortal boy, and also of a
looking-glass let into the wall, and also
of clerks not at all old, who danced in
public on the slightest provocation.
Yet, a French Tellson's could get on with
these things exceedingly well, and, as long
as the times held together, no man had
taken fright at them, and drawn out his
money.
What money would be drawn out of Tellson's
henceforth, and what would lie there, lost
and forgotten; what plate and jewels would
tarnish in Tellson's hiding-places, while
the depositors rusted in prisons, and when
they should have violently perished; how
many accounts with Tellson's never to be
balanced in this world, must be carried
over into the next; no man could have said,
that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry
could, though he thought heavily of these
questions.
He sat by a newly-lighted wood fire (the
blighted and unfruitful year was
prematurely cold), and on his honest and
courageous face there was a deeper shade
than the pendent lamp could throw, or any
object in the room distortedly reflect--a
shade of horror.
He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his
fidelity to the House of which he had grown
to be a part, like strong root-ivy.
It chanced that they derived a kind of
security from the patriotic occupation of
the main building, but the true-hearted old
gentleman never calculated about that.
All such circumstances were indifferent to
him, so that he did his duty.
On the opposite side of the courtyard,
under a colonnade, was extensive standing--
for carriages--where, indeed, some
carriages of Monseigneur yet stood.
Against two of the pillars were fastened
two great flaring flambeaux, and in the
light of these, standing out in the open
air, was a large grindstone: a roughly
mounted thing which appeared to have
hurriedly been brought there from some
neighbouring smithy, or other workshop.
Rising and looking out of window at these
harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and
retired to his seat by the fire.
He had opened, not only the glass window,
but the lattice blind outside it, and he
had closed both again, and he shivered
through his frame.
From the streets beyond the high wall and
the strong gate, there came the usual night
hum of the city, with now and then an
indescribable ring in it, weird and
unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a
terrible nature were going up to Heaven.
"Thank God," said Mr. Lorry, clasping his
hands, "that no one near and dear to me is
in this dreadful town to-night.
May He have mercy on all who are in
danger!"
Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate
sounded, and he thought, "They have come
back!" and sat listening.
But, there was no loud irruption into the
courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard
the gate clash again, and all was quiet.
The nervousness and dread that were upon
him inspired that vague uneasiness
respecting the Bank, which a great change
would naturally awaken, with such feelings
roused.
It was well guarded, and he got up to go
among the trusty people who were watching
it, when his door suddenly opened, and two
figures rushed in, at sight of which he
fell back in amazement.
Lucie and her father!
Lucie with her arms stretched out to him,
and with that old look of earnestness so
concentrated and intensified, that it
seemed as though it had been stamped upon
her face expressly to give force and power
to it in this one passage of her life.
"What is this?" cried Mr. Lorry, breathless
and confused.
"What is the matter?
Lucie!
Manette!
What has happened?
What has brought you here?
What is it?"
With the look fixed upon him, in her
paleness and wildness, she panted out in
his arms, imploringly, "O my dear friend!
My husband!"
"Your husband, Lucie?"
"Charles."
"What of Charles?"
"Here.
"Here, in Paris?"
"Has been here some days--three or four--I
don't know how many--I can't collect my
thoughts.
An errand of generosity brought him here
unknown to us; he was stopped at the
barrier, and sent to prison."
The old man uttered an irrepressible cry.
Almost at the same moment, the beg of the
great gate rang again, and a loud noise of
feet and voices came pouring into the
courtyard.
"What is that noise?" said the Doctor,
turning towards the window.
"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry.
"Don't look out!
Manette, for your life, don't touch the
blind!"
The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the
fastening of the window, and said, with a
cool, bold smile:
"My dear friend, I have a charmed life in
this city.
I have been a Bastille prisoner.
There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris?
In France--who, knowing me to have been a
prisoner in the Bastille, would touch me,
except to overwhelm me with embraces, or
carry me in triumph.
My old pain has given me a power that has
brought us through the barrier, and gained
us news of Charles there, and brought us
here.
I knew it would be so; I knew I could help
Charles out of all danger; I told Lucie
so.--What is that noise?"
His hand was again upon the window.
"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely
desperate.
"No, Lucie, my dear, nor you!"
He got his arm round her, and held her.
"Don't be so terrified, my love.
I solemnly swear to you that I know of no
harm having happened to Charles; that I had
no suspicion even of his being in this
fatal place.
What prison is he in?"
"La Force!"
"La Force!
Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and
serviceable in your life--and you were
always both--you will compose yourself now,
to do exactly as I bid you; for more
depends upon it than you can think, or I
can say.
There is no help for you in any action on
your part to-night; you cannot possibly
stir out.
I say this, because what I must bid you to
do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing
to do of all.
You must instantly be obedient, still, and
quiet.
You must let me put you in a room at the
back here.
You must leave your father and me alone for
two minutes, and as there are Life and
Death in the world you must not delay."
"I will be submissive to you.
I see in your face that you know I can do
nothing else than this.
I know you are true."
The old man kissed her, and hurried her
into his room, and turned the key; then,
came hurrying back to the Doctor, and
opened the window and partly opened the
blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's
arm, and looked out with him into the
courtyard.
Looked out upon a throng of men and women:
not enough in number, or near enough, to
fill the courtyard: not more than forty or
fifty in all.
The people in possession of the house had
let them in at the gate, and they had
rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had
evidently been set up there for their
purpose, as in a convenient and retired
spot.
But, such awful workers, and such awful
work!
The grindstone had a double handle, and,
turning at it madly were two men, whose
faces, as their long hair flapped back when
the whirlings of the grindstone brought
their faces up, were more horrible and
cruel than the visages of the wildest
savages in their most barbarous disguise.
False eyebrows and false moustaches were
stuck upon them, and their hideous
countenances were all bloody and sweaty,
and all awry with howling, and all staring
and glaring with beastly excitement and
want of sleep.
As these ruffians turned and turned, their
matted locks now flung forward over their
eyes, now flung backward over their necks,
some women held wine to their mouths that
they might drink; and what with dropping
blood, and what with dropping wine, and
what with the stream of sparks struck out
of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere
seemed gore and fire.
The eye could not detect one creature in
the group free from the smear of blood.
Shouldering one another to get next at the
sharpening-stone, were men stripped to the
waist, with the stain all over their limbs
and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with
the stain upon those rags; men devilishly
set off with spoils of women's lace and
silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing
those trifles through and through.
Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all
brought to be sharpened, were all red with
it.
Some of the hacked swords were tied to the
wrists of those who carried them, with
strips of linen and fragments of dress:
ligatures various in kind, but all deep of
the one colour.
And as the frantic wielders of these
weapons snatched them from the stream of
sparks and tore away into the streets, the
same red hue was red in their frenzied
eyes;--eyes which any unbrutalised beholder
would have given twenty years of life, to
petrify with a well-directed gun.
All this was seen in a moment, as the
vision of a drowning man, or of any human
creature at any very great pass, could see
a world if it were there.
They drew back from the window, and the
Doctor looked for explanation in his
friend's ashy face.
"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered the words,
glancing fearfully round at the locked
room, "murdering the prisoners.
If you are sure of what you say; if you
really have the power you think you have--
as I believe you have--make yourself known
to these devils, and get taken to La Force.
It may be too late, I don't know, but let
it not be a minute later!"
Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened
bareheaded out of the room, and was in the
courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the
blind.
His streaming white hair, his remarkable
face, and the impetuous confidence of his
manner, as he put the weapons aside like
water, carried him in an instant to the
heart of the concourse at the stone.
For a few moments there was a pause, and a
hurry, and a murmur, and the unintelligible
sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw
him, surrounded by all, and in the midst of
a line of twenty men long, all linked
shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder,
hurried out with cries of--"Live the
Bastille prisoner!
Help for the Bastille prisoner's kindred in
La Force!
Room for the Bastille prisoner in front
there!
Save the prisoner Evremonde at La Force!"
and a thousand answering shouts.
He closed the lattice again with a
fluttering heart, closed the window and the
curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her
that her father was assisted by the people,
and gone in search of her husband.
He found her child and Miss Pross with her;
but, it never occurred to him to be
surprised by their appearance until a long
time afterwards, when he sat watching them
in such quiet as the night knew.
Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a
stupor on the floor at his feet, clinging
to his hand.
Miss Pross had laid the child down on his
own bed, and her head had gradually fallen
on the pillow beside her pretty charge.
O the long, long night, with the moans of
the poor wife!
And O the long, long night, with no return
of her father and no tidings!
Twice more in the darkness the bell at the
great gate sounded, and the irruption was
repeated, and the grindstone whirled and
spluttered.
"What is it?" cried Lucie, affrighted.
"Hush!
The soldiers' swords are sharpened there,"
said Mr. Lorry.
"The place is national property now, and
used as a kind of armoury, my love."
Twice more in all; but, the last spell of
work was feeble and fitful.
Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and
he softly detached himself from the
clasping hand, and cautiously looked out
again.
A man, so besmeared that he might have been
a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to
consciousness on a field of slain, was
rising from the pavement by the side of the
grindstone, and looking about him with a
vacant air.
Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in
the imperfect light one of the carriages of
Monseigneur, and, staggering to that
gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door,
and shut himself up to take his rest on its
dainty cushions.
The great grindstone, Earth, had turned
when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the
sun was red on the courtyard.
But, the lesser grindstone stood alone
there in the calm morning air, with a red
upon it that the sun had never given, and
would never take away.