Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0060/00607.txt

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Hard Times
Chapter VI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{rachael
ha
upon
now
another
hand
sissy
stephen
windlass
grass}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Hard Times
Book:        Book The Third: Garnering
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter VI

The Starlight

     The Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when early in
the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country.

     As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the
neighbourhood's too - after the manner of those pious persons who do penance
for their own sins by putting other people into sackcloth - it was customary
for those who now and then thirsted for a draught of pure air, which is not
absolutely the most wicked among the vanities of life, to get a few miles away
by the railroad, and then begin their walk, or their lounge in the fields.
Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the smoke by the usual means, and
were put down at a station about midway between the town and Mr. Bounderby's
retreat.

     Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of coal,
it was green elsewhere, and there were trees to see, and there were larks
singing (though it was Sunday), and there were pleasant scents in the air, and
all was overarched by a bright blue sky.  In the distance one way, Coketown
showed as a black mist; in another distance, hills began to rise; in a third,
there was a faint change in the light of the horizon, where it shone upon the
far-off sea.  Under their feet, the grass was fresh; beautiful shadows of
branches flickered upon it, and speckled it; hedgerows were luxuriant;
everything was at peace.  Engines at pits' mouths, and lean old horses that
had worn the circle of their daily labour into the ground, were alike quiet;
wheels had ceased for a short space to turn; and the great wheel of earth
seemed to revolve without the shocks and noises of another time.

     They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes, sometimes
getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it dropped at a touch of the
foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown with grass,
marking the site of deserted works.  They followed paths and tracks, however
slight.  Mounds where the grass was rank and high, and where brambles,
dock-weed, and such-like vegetation, were confusedly heaped together, they
always avoided; for dismal stories were told in that country of the old pits
hidden beneath such indications.

     The sun was high when they sat down to rest.  They had seen no one, near
or distant, for a long time; and the solitude remained unbroken.  "It is so
still here, Rachael, and the way is so untrodden, that I think we must be the
first who have been here all the summer."

     As Sissy said it her eyes were attracted by another of those rotten
fragments of fence upon the ground.  She got up to look at it.  "And yet I
don't know.  This has not been broken very long.  The wood is quite fresh
where it gave way.  Here are footsteps too. - O Rachael!"

     She ran back and caught her round the neck.  Rachael had already started
up.

     "What is the matter?"

     "I don't know.  There is a hat lying in the grass."

     They went forward together.  Rachael took it up, shaking from head to
foot.  She broke into a passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen Blackpool
was written in his own hand on the inside.

     "O the poor lad, the poor lad!  He had been made away with.  He is lying
murdered here!"

     "Is there - has the hat any blood upon it?" Sissy faltered.

     They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found no mark of
violence, inside or out.  It had been lying there for some days, for rain and
dew had stained it, and the mark of its shape was on the grass where it had
fallen.  They looked fearfully about them, without moving, but could see
nothing more.  "Rachael," Sissy whispered, "I will go on a little by myself."

     She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping forward, when
Rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that resounded over the wide
landscape.  Before them, at their very feet, was the brink of a black ragged
chasm hidden by the thick grass.  They sprang back, and fell upon their knees,
each hiding her face upon the other's neck.

     "O, my good Lord!  He's down there!  Down there!" At first this, and her
terrific screams, were all that could be got from Rachael, by any tears, by
any prayers, by any representations, by any means.  It was impossible to hush
her; and it was deadly necessary to hold her, or she would have flung herself
down the shaft.

     "Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of Heaven not these
dreadful cries!  Think of Stephen, think of Stephen, think of Stephen!"

     By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all the agony of
such a moment, Sissy at last brought her to be silent, and to look at her with
a tearless face of stone.

     "Rachael, Stephen may be living.  You wouldn't leave him lying maimed at
the bottom of this dreadful place, a moment, if you could bring help to him!"

     "No, no, no!"

     "Don't stir from here, for his sake!  Let me go and listen."

     She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on her hands
and knees, and called to him as loud as she could call.  She listened, but no
sound replied.  She called again and listened; still no answering sound.  She
did this, twenty, thirty times.  She took a little clod of earth from the
broken ground where he had stumbled and threw it in.  She could not hear it
fall.

     The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes ago,
almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she rose and looked all round
her, seeing no help.  "Rachael, we must lose not a moment.  We must go in
different directions, seeking aid.  You shall go by the way we have come, and
I will go forward by the path.  Tell any one you see, and every one what has
happened.  Think of Stephen, think of Stephen!"

     She knew by Rachael's face that she might trust her now.  And after
standing for a moment to see her running, wringing her hands as she ran, she
turned and went upon her own search; she stopped at the hedge to tie her shawl
there as a guide to the place, then threw her bonnet aside, and ran as she had
never run before.

     Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven's name!  Don't stop for breath.  Run, run!
Quickening herself by carrying such entreaties in her thoughts, she ran from
field to field, and lane to lane, and place to place, as she had never run
before; until she came to a shed by an engine-house, where two men lay in the
shade, asleep on straw.

     First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and breathless as
she was, what had brought her there, were difficulties; but they no sooner
understood her than their spirits were on fire like hers.  One of the men was
in a drunken slumber, but on his comrade's shouting to him that a man had
fallen down the Old Hell Shaft, he started out to a pool of dirty water, put
his head in it, and came back sober.

     With these two men she ran to another half-a-mile further, and with that
one to another, while they ran elsewhere.  Then a horse was found; and she got
another man to ride for life or death to the railroad, and send a message to
Louisa, which she wrote and gave him.  By this time a whole village was up;
and windlasses, poles, candles, lanterns, all things necessary, were fast
collecting and being brought into one place, to be carried to the Old Hell
Shaft.

     It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying in
the grave where he had been buried alive.  She could not bear to remain away
from it any longer - it was like deserting him - and she hurried swiftly back,
accompanied by half-a-dozen laborers, including the drunken man whom the news
had sobered, and who was the best man of all.  When they came to the Old Hell
Shaft, they found it as lonely as she had left it. The men called and listened
as she had done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled how it had
happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements they wanted should
come up.

     Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves, every
whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought it was a cry at
the bottom of the pit.  But the wind blew idly over it, and no sound arose to
the surface, and they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting.  After they had
waited some time, straggling people who had heard of the accident began to
come up; then the real help of implements began to arrive.  In the midst of
this, Rachael returned; and with her party there was a surgeon, who brought
some wine and medicines.  But, the expectation among the people that the man
would be found alive, was very slight indeed.

     There being now people enough present to impede the work, the sobered man
put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there by the general consent,
and made a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed men to keep it.
Besides such volunteers as were accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachael were
at first permitted within this ring; but, later in the day, when the message
brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa, and Mr. Bounderby
and the whelp, were also there.

     The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first sat
down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men to descend securely
was rigged with poles and ropes.  Difficulties had arisen in the construction
of this machine, simple as it was; requisites had been found wanting, and
messages had had to go and return.  It was five o'clock in the afternoon of
the bright autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent down to try the air,
while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together, attentively
watching it: the men at the windlass lowering as they were told.  The candle
was brought up again, feebly burning, and then some water was cast in.  Then
the bucket was hooked on; and the sobered man and another got in with lights,
giving the word "Lower away!"

     As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, there
was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women looking on, that
came as it was wont to come.  The signal was given and the windlass stopped,
with abundant rope to spare.  Apparently so long an interval ensued with the
men at the windlass standing idle, that some women shrieked that another
accident had happened!  But the surgeon who held the watch, declared five
minutes not to have elapsed yet, and sternly admonished them to keep silence.
He had not well done speaking, when the windlass was reversed and worked
again.  Practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as it would if both
workmen had been coming up, and that only one was returning.

     The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon
the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered
man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass.  There was an
universal cry of "Alive or dead?" and then a deep, profound hush.

     When he said "Alive!" a great shout arose and many eyes had tears in
them.

     "But he's hurt very bad," be added, as soon as he could make himself
heard again.  "Where's doctor?  He's hurt so very bad, sir, that we donno how
to get him up."

     They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon, as he
asked some questions, and shook his head on receiving the replies.  The sun
was setting now and the red light in the evening sky touched every face there,
and caused it to be distinctly seen in all its wrapt suspense.

     The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and the
pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other small matters with
him.  Then the other man came up.  In the meantime under the surgeon's
directions, some men brought a hurdle on which others made a thick bed of
spare clothes covered with loose straw, while he himself contrived some
bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs.  As these were made, they
were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last come up, with instructions
how to use them: and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his
powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, and sometimes glancing down the
pit, and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was not the least
conspicuous figure in the scene.  It was dark now, and torches were kindled.

     It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, which was
quickly repeated all over the circle, that the lost man had fallen upon a mass
of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half choked up, and that his fall
had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side. He lay upon his back
with one arm doubled under him, and according to his own belief had hardly
stirred since he fell, except that he had moved his free hand to a side
pocket, in which he remembered to have some bread and meat (of which he had
swallowed crumbs), and had likewise scooped up a little water in it now and
then.  He had come straight away from his work, on being written to, and had
walked the whole journey; and was on his way to Mr. Bounderby's country-house
after dark, when he fell.  He was crossing that dangerous country at such a
dangerous time, because he was innocent of what was laid to his charge, and
couldn't rest from coming the nearest way to deliver himself up.  The Old Hell
Shaft, the pitman said, with a curse upon it, was worthy of its bad name to
the last; for though Stephen could speak now, he believed it would soon be
found to have mangled the life out of him.

     When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hurried charges from
his comrades and the surgeon after the windlass had begun to lower him,
disappeared into the pit.  The rope went out as before, the signal was made as
before, and the windlass stopped.  No man removed his hand from it now.  Every
one waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to the work, ready to
reverse and wind in.  At length the signal was given, and all the ring leaned
forward.

     For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as it
appeared, and the men turned heavily, and the windlass complained.  It was
scarcely endurable to look at the rope, and think of its giving way. But, ring
after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, and the
connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket with the two men holding on
at the sides - a sight to make the head swim, and oppress the head - and
tenderly supporting between them, slung and tied within, the figure of a poor,
crushed, human creature.

     A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept aloud, as
this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly from its iron
deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw.  At first, none but the surgeon
went close to it.  He did what he could in its adjustment on the couch, but
the best he could do was to cover it.  That gently done, he called to him
Rachael and Sissy.  And at that time the pale, worn, patient face was seen
looking up at the sky, with the broken right hand lying bare on the outside of
the covering garments, as if waiting to be taken by another hand.

     They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and administered some
drops of cordial and wine.  Though he lay quite motionless looking up at the
sky, he smiled and said, "Rachael."

     She stooped down on the grass at his side, and bent over him until her
eyes were between his and the sky, for he could not so much as turn them to
look at her.

     "Rachael, my dear."

     She took hand.  He smiled again and said, "Don't let 't go."

     "Thou 'rt in great pain, my own dear Stephen?"

     "I ha' been, but not now.  I ha' been - dreadful, and dree, and long, my
dear - but 'tis ower now.  Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle!  Fro' first to last, a
muddle!"

     The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word.

     "I ha' fell into th' pit, my dear, as have cost wi'in the knowledge o'
old fok now livin, hundreds and hundreds o' men's lives - fathers, sons,
brothers, dear to thousands an thousands, an keepin 'em fro' want and hunger.
I ha' fell into a pit that ha' been wi' th' Fire-damp crueller than battle.  I
ha' read on 't in the public petition, as onny one may read, fro' the men that
works in pits, on which they ha' pray'n an pray'n the lawmakers for Christ's
sake not to let their work be murder to 'em, but to spare 'em for th' wives
and children that they loves as well as gentlefok loves theirs.  When it were
in work, it killed wi'out need; when 'tis let alone, it kills wi'out need.
See how we die an no need, one way an another - in a muddle - every day!"

     He faintly said it, without any anger against any one.  Merely as the
truth.

     "Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her.  Thou'rt not like
to forget her now, and me so nigh her.  Thou know'st - poor, patient,
suff'rin, dear - how thou didst work for her, seet'n all day long in her
little chair at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshapen, awlung o'
sickly air as had'n no need to be, an awlung o' working people's miserable
homes.  A muddle!  Aw a muddle!"

     Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with his face
turned up to the night sky.

     "If aw th' things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I
should'n ha' had'n need to coom heer.  If we was not in a muddle among
ourseln, I should'n ha' been, by my own fellow weavers and workin' brothers,
so mistook.  If Mr. Bounderby had ever know'd me right - if he'd ever know'd
me at aw - he would'n ha' took'n offence wi' me.  He wouldn't ha' suspect'n
me.  But look up yonder, Rachael!  Look aboove!" following his eyes, she saw
that he was gazing at a star.

     "It ha' shined upon me," he said reverently, "in my pain and trouble down
below.  It ha' shined into my mind.  I ha' look'n at't an thowt o' thee,
Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa, above a bit, I hope.  If
soom ha' been wantin' in unnerstan'in me better, I, too, ha' been wantin' in
unnerstan'in them better.  When I got thy letter, I easily believen that what
the yoong ledy sen and done to me, an what her brother sen and done to me, was
one, and that there were a wicket plot betwixt 'em.  When I fell, I were in
anger wi' her, and hurryin on t' be as unjust t' her as oothers was t' me.
But in our judgments, like as in our doins, we mun bear and forbear.  In my
pain and trouble, lookin up yonder, - wi' it shinin on me - I ha seen more
clear, and ha' made it my dyin prayer that aw th' world may on'y coom
toogether more and get a better unnerstan'in o' one another, than when I were
in't my own weak seln."

     Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the opposite side to
Rachael, so that he could see her.

     "You ha' heard?" he said after a few moments' silence.  "I ha' not forgot
you, ledy."

     "Yes, Stephen, I have heard you.  And your prayer is mine."

     "You ha' a father.  Will yo tak' a message to him?"

     "He is here," said Louisa, with dread.  "Shall I bring him to you?"

     "If you please."

     Louisa returned with her father.  Standing hand-in-hand, they both looked
down upon the solemn countenance.

     "Sir, yo will clear me and mak my name good wi' aw men.  This I leave to
yo."

     Mr. Gradgrind was troubled and asked how?

     "Sir," was the reply: "yor son will tell yo how.  Ask him.  I make no
charges: I leave none ahint me: not a single word.  I ha' seen and spok'n wi'
yor son, one night.  I ask no more o' yo than that yo clear me - an I trust to
yo to do't."

     The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon being
anxious for his removal, those who had torches or lanterns prepared to go in
front of the litter.  Before it was raised, and while they were arranging how
to go, he said to Rachael, looking upward at the star:

     "Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin on me down there in my
trouble, I thowt it were the star as guided to Our Saviour's home.  I awmust
think it be the very star!"

     They lifted him up and he was overjoyed to find that they were about to
take him in the direction whither the star seemed to him to lead.

     "Rachael, beloved lass!  Don't let go my hand.  We may walk toogether
t'night, my dear!"

     "I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Stephen, all the way."

     "Bless thee!  Will soombody be pleased to coover my face!"

     They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes, and
over the wide landscape; Rachael always holding the hand in hers. Very few
whispers broke the mournful silence.  It was soon a funeral procession.  The
star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; and through humility,
and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his Redeemer's rest.