Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0059/00594.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 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'n my share in
feeling o't.  'Deed we are in a muddle, sir.  Look round town - so rich as
'tis - and see the numbers o' people as has been broughten into bein heer, fur
to weave, and to card, and to piece out a livin', aw the same one way,
somehows, twixt their cradles and their graves.  Look how we live, an wheer we
live, an in what numbers, an by what chances, and wi' what sameness; and look
how the mills is awlus a goin, and how they never works us no nigher to only
dis'ant object - ceptin awlus, Death.  Look how you considers of us, an writes
of us an talks of us, an goes up wi' yor deputations to Secretaries o' State
'bout us, an how yo are awlus right, and how we are awlus wrong, and never
had'n no reason in us sin ever we were born.  Look how this ha growen an
growen, sir, bigger an bigger, broader an broader, harder an harder, fro year
to year, fro generation unto generation.  Who can look on 't, sir, and fairly
tell a man 'tis not a muddle?"

     "Of course," said Mr. Bounderby.  "Now perhaps you'll let the gentleman
know, how you would set this muddle (as you're so fond of calling it) to
rights."

     "I donno, sir.  I canna be expecten to 't.  'Tis not me as should be
looked to for that, sir.  'Tis them as is put ower me, and ower aw the rest of
us.  What do they tak upon themseln, sir, if not to do 't?"

     "I'll tell you something towards it, at any rate," returned Mr.
Bounderby.  "We will make an example of half a dozen Slackbridges.  We'll
indict the blackguards for felony, and get'em shipped off to penal
settlements."

     Stephen gravely shook his head.

     "Don't tell me we won't, man," said Mr. Bounderby by this time blowing a
hurricane, "because we will, I tell you!"

     "Sir," returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence of absolute certainty,
"if yo was t' tak a hundred Slackbridges - aw as there is, and aw the number
ten times towd - and was t' sew 'em up in separate sacks, and sink 'em in the
deepest ocean as were made ere ever dry land coom to be, yo'd leave the muddle
just wheer 'tis.  Mischeevous strangers!" said Stephen with an anxious smile;
"when ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever we can call to mind, o' th'
mischeevous strangers!  'Tis not by them the trouble's made, sir.  'Tis not
wi' them 't commences.  I ha no favour for'em - I ha no reason to to favour
'em - but 'tis hopeless and useless to dream o' takin them fro their trade,
'stead o' takin their trade fro them!  Aw that's now about me in this room
were heer afore I coom, and will be heer when I am gone.  Put that clock
aboard a ship and pack it off to Norfolk Island, an the time will go on just
the same.  So 'tis wi' Slackbridge every bit."

     Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he observed a cautionary
movement of her eyes towards the door.  Stepping back, he put his hand upon
the lock.  But he had not spoken out of his own will and desire; and he felt
it in his heart a noble return for his late injurious treatment to be faithful
to the last to those who had repudiated him.  He stayed to finish what was in
his mind.

     "Sir, I canna, wi' my little learning an my common way, tell the genelman
what will be better aw this - though some workingmen o' this town could, above
my powers - but I can tell him what I know will never do 't. The strong hand
will never do 't.  Vict'ry and triumph will never do 't. Agreeing for to mak
one side unnat'rally awlus and forever right, and toother side unnat'rally
awlus forever wrong, will never, never do 't. Nor yet lettin alone will never
do 't.  Let thousands upon thousands alone, aw leadin the like lives and aw
faw'en into the like muddle, and they will be as one, and yo will be as
anoother, wi' a black unpassable world betwixt yo, just as long or short a
time as sitch-like misery can last.  Not drawin nigh to fok, wi' kindness and
patience an cheery ways, that so draws nigh to one another in their monny
trobles, and so cherishes one another in their distresses wi' what they need
themseln - like, I humbly believe, as no people the genelman ha seen in aw his
travels can beat - will never do 't till th' Sun turns t' ice.  Most o' aw,
ratin 'em as so much Power, and reg'latin 'em as if they was figures in a soom
or machines: wi'out loves and likens, wi'out memories and inclinations, wi'out
souls to weary and souls to hope - when aw goes quiet, draggin on wi' 'em as
if they'd nowt o' th' kind, and when aw goes onquiet, reproachin 'em for their
want o' sitch humanly feelins in their dealins wi' yo - this will never do 't,
sir, till God's work is unmade."

     Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting to know if anything
more were expected of him.

     "Just stop a moment," said Mr. Bounderby, excessively red in the face.
"I told you, the last time you were here with a grievance, that you had better
turn about and come out of that.  And I also told you, if you remember, that I
was up to the gold spo'on look-out."

     "I were not up to 't myseln, sir; I do assure yo."

     "Now it's clear to me," said Mr. Bounderby, "that you are one of those
chaps who have always got a grievance.  And you go about, sowing it and
raising crops.  That's the business of your life, my friend."

     Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed he had other
business to do for his life.

     "You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-conditioned chap, you see," said
Mr. Bounderby, "that even your own Union, the men who know you best, will have
nothing to do with you.  I never thought those fellows could be right in
anything; but I tell you what!  I so far go along with them for a novelty that
I'll have nothing to do with you either."

     Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face.

     "You can finish off what you're at," said Mr. Bounderby, with a meaning
nod, "and then go elsewhere."

     "Sir, yo know weel," said Stephen expressively, "that if I canna get work
wi' yo, I canna get it else-wheer."

     The reply was, "What I know, I know; and what you know, you know.  I have
no more to say about it."

     Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were raised to his no more;
therefore, with a sigh, and saying, barely above his breath, "Heaven help us
aw in this world!" he departed.