The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0059/00594.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 15KB | 296 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00594}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Hard Times
Chapter V}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{bounderby
sir
wi
em
stephen
aw
yo
tis
now
ha}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Hard Times
Book:        Book The Second: Reaping
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter V

Men And Masters

     "Well, Stephen," said Bounderby, in his windy manner, "what's this I
hear?  What have these pests of the earth been doing to you?  Come in and
speak up."

     It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden.  A tea-table
was set out; and Mr. Bounderby's young wife, and her brother, and a great
gentleman from London, were present.  To whom Stephen made his obeisance,
closing the door and standing near it, with his hat in his hand.

     "This is the man I was telling you about, Harthouse," said Mr. Bounderby.
The gentleman he addressed, who was talking to Mrs. Bounderby on the sofa, got
up, saying in an indolent way, "Oh really?" and dawdled to the hearthrug where
Mr. Bounderby stood.

     "Now," said Bounderby, "speak up!"

     After the four days he had passed, this address fell rudely and
discordantly on Stephen's ear.  Besides being a rough handling of his wounded
mind, it seemed to assume that he really was the self-interested deserter he
had been called.

     "What were it, sir," said Stephen, "as yo were pleased to want wi' me?"

     "Why, I have told you," returned Bounderby.  "Speak up like a man, since
you are a man, and tell us about yourself and this Combination."

     "Wi' yor pardon, sir," said Stephen Blackpool, "I ha' nowt to sen about
it."

     Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a Wind, finding something
in his way here, began to blow at it directly.

     "Now, look here, Harthouse," said he, "here's a specimen of 'em. When
this man was here once before, I warned this man against the mischievous
strangers who are always about - and who ought to be hanged wherever they are
found - and I told this man that he was going in the wrong direction.  Now,
would you believe it, that although they have put this mark upon him, he is
such a slave to them still, that he's afraid to open his lips about them?"

     "I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir; not as I was fearfo o' openin' my
lips."

     "You said.  Ah!  I know what you said; more than that, I know what you
mean, you see.  Not always the same thing, by the Lord Harry!  Quite different
things.  You had better tell us at once, that that fellow Slackbridge is not
in the town, stirring up the people to mutiny; and that he is not a regular
qualified leader of the people: that is, a most confounded scoundrel.  You had
better tell us so at once; you can't deceive me.  You want to tell us so.  Why
don't you?"

     "I'm as sooary as yo, sir, when the people's leaders is bad," said
Stephen, shaking his head.  "They taks such as offers.  Haply 'tis na' the
sma'est o' their misfortuns when they can get no better."

     The wind began to get boisterous.

     "Now, you'll think this pretty well, Harthouse," said Mr. Bounderby.
"You'll think this tolerably strong.  You'll say, upon my soul this is a tidy
specimen of what my friends have to deal with; but this is nothing, sir!  You
shall hear me ask this man a question.  Pray, Mr. Blackpool" - wind springing
up very fast - "may I take the liberty of asking you how it happens that you
refused to be in this Combination?"

     "How't happens?"

     "Ah!" said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the arms of his coat, and
jerking his head and shutting his eyes in confidence with the opposite wall:
"how it happens."

     "I'd leefer not coom to 't, sir; but sin you put th' question - an not
want'n t' be ill-manner'n - I'll answer.  I ha passed a promess."

     "Not to me, you know," said Bounderby.  (Gusty weather with deceitful
calms.  One now prevailing.)

     "O no, sir.  Not to yo."

     "As for me, any consideration for me has had just nothing at all to do
with it," said Bounderby, still in confidence with the wall.  "If only Josiah
Bounderby of Coketown had been in question, you would have joined and made no
bones of it?"

     "Why yes, sir.  'Tis true."

     "Though he knows," said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing a gale, "that these
are a set of rascals and rebels whom transportation is too good for! Now, Mr.
Hart house, you have been knocking about in the world some time. Did you ever
meet with anything like that man out of this blessed country?" And Mr.
Bounderby pointed him out for inspection, with an angry finger.

     "Nay, ma'am," said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against the
words that had been used, and instinctively addressing himself to Louisa,
after glancing at her face.  "Not rebels, nor yet rascals.  Nowt o' th' kind,
ma'am, nowt o th' kind.  They've not doon me a kindness, ma'am, as I know and
feel.  But, there's not a dozen men amoong 'em, ma'am - a dozen?  Not six -
but what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest and by himseln.  God
forbid as I, that ha known, and had'n experience o' these men aw my life - I,
that ha' ett'n an droonken wi' em, an seet'n wi' em, an seet'n wi' em, and
toil'n wi' em, and lov'n 'em, should fail fur to stan by 'em wi' the truth,
let 'em ha doon to me what they may!"

     He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and character -
deepened perhaps by a proud consciousness that he was faithful to his class
under all their mistrust; but he fully remembered where he was, and did not
even raise his voice.

     "No ma'am, no.  They're true to one another, faithfo' to one another,
fectionate to one another, e'en to death.  Be poor amoong 'em, be sick amoong
'em, grieve amoong 'em for onny o' th' monny causes that carries grief to the
poor man's door, an they'll be tender wi' yo, gentle wi' yo, comfortable wi'
yo, Chrisen wi' yo.  Be sure o' that, ma'am.  They'd be riven to bits, ere
ever they'd be different."

     "In short," said Mr. Bounderby, "it's because they are so full of virtues
that they have turned you adrift.  Go through with it while you are about it.
Out with it."

     "How 'tis, ma'am," resumed Stephen, appearing still to find his natural
refuge in Louisa's face, "that what is best in us fok, seems to turn us most
to trouble an misfort'n an mistake, I dunno.  But 'tis so.  I know 'tis, as I
know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke.  We're patient too, and wants in
general to do right.  An' I canna think the fawt is aw wi' us."

     "Now, my friend," said Mr. Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated
more, quite unconscious of it though he was, than by seeming to appeal to any
one else, "if you will favour me with your attention for half a minute, I
should like to have a word or two with you.  You said just now, that you had
nothing to tell us about this business.  You are quite sure of that before we
go any further?"

     "Sir, I am sure on 't."

     "Here's a gentleman from London present," Mr. Bounderby made a
back-handed point at Mr. James Harthouse with his thumb, "Parliament
gentleman.  I should like him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and
me, instead of taking the substance of it - for I know precious well,
before-hand, what it will be; nobody knows better than I do, take notice! -
instead of receiving it on trust, from your mouth."

     Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed a rather
more troubled mind than usual.  He turned his eyes involuntarily to his former
refuge, but at a look from that quarter (expressive though instantaneous) he
settled them on Mr. Bounderby's face.

     "Now, what do you complain of?" asked Mr. Bounderby.

     "I ha' not coom here, sir," Stephen reminded him, "to complain.  I coom
for that I were sent for."

     "What," repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, "do you people, in a
general way, complain of?"

     Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment, and
seemed to make up his mind.

     "Sir, I were never good at showin o't, though I ha had