Hard Times

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'I am very, very sorry,' said Louisa.

'Oh, young lady, young lady,' returned Rachael, 'I hope you may be,
but I don't know! I can't say what you may ha' done! The like of
you don't know us, don't care for us, don't belong to us. I am not
sure why you may ha' come that night. I can't tell but what you
may ha' come wi' some aim of your own, not mindin to what trouble
you brought such as the poor lad. I said then, Bless you for
coming; and I said it of my heart, you seemed to take so pitifully
to him; but I don't know now, I don't know!'

Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so
faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted.

'And when I think,' said Rachael through her sobs, 'that the poor
lad was so grateful, thinkin you so good to him - when I mind that
he put his hand over his hard-worken face to hide the tears that
you brought up there - Oh, I hope you may be sorry, and ha' no bad
cause to be it; but I don't know, I don't know!'

'You're a pretty article,' growled the whelp, moving uneasily in
his dark corner, 'to come here with these precious imputations!
You ought to be bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself,
and you would be by rights.'

She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only sound
that was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke.

'Come!' said he, 'you know what you have engaged to do. You had
better give your mind to that; not this.'

''Deed, I am loath,' returned Rachael, drying her eyes, 'that any
here should see me like this; but I won't be seen so again. Young
lady, when I had read what's put in print of Stephen - and what has
just as much truth in it as if it had been put in print of you - I
went straight to the Bank to say I knew where Stephen was, and to
give a sure and certain promise that he should be here in two days.
I couldn't meet wi' Mr. Bounderby then, and your brother sent me
away, and I tried to find you, but you was not to be found, and I
went back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill to-night, I
hastened to hear what was said of Stephen - for I know wi' pride he
will come back to shame it! - and then I went again to seek Mr.
Bounderby, and I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and
he believed no word I said, and brought me here.'

'So far, that's true enough,' assented Mr. Bounderby, with his
hands in his pockets and his hat on. 'But I have known you people
before to-day, you'll observe, and I know you never die for want of
talking. Now, I recommend you not so much to mind talking just
now, as doing. You have undertaken to do something; all I remark
upon that at present is, do it!'

'I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this
afternoon, as I have written to him once before sin' he went away,'
said Rachael; 'and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.'

'Then, I'll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps,'
retorted Mr. Bounderby, 'that you yourself have been looked after
now and then, not being considered quite free from suspicion in
this business, on account of most people being judged according to
the company they keep. The post-office hasn't been forgotten
either. What I'll tell you is, that no letter to Stephen Blackpool
has ever got into it. Therefore, what has become of yours, I leave
you to guess. Perhaps you're mistaken, and never wrote any.'

'He hadn't been gone from here, young lady,' said Rachael, turning
appealingly to Louisa, 'as much as a week, when he sent me the only
letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work
in another name.'

'Oh, by George!' cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle,
'he changes his name, does he! That's rather unlucky, too, for
such an immaculate chap. It's considered a little suspicious in
Courts of Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many
names.'

'What,' said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, 'what,
young lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do! The
masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other,
he only wantin to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right.
Can a man have no soul of his own, no mind of his own? Must he go
wrong all through wi' this side, or must he go wrong all through
wi' that, or else be hunted like a hare?'

'Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,' returned Louisa; 'and I
hope that he will clear himself.'

'You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!'

'All the surer, I suppose,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'for your refusing
to tell where he is? Eh?'

'He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi' the unmerited
reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own
accord to clear himself, and put all those that have injured his
good character, and he not here for its defence, to shame. I have
told him what has been done against him,' said Rachael, throwing
off all distrust as a rock throws of the sea, 'and he will be here,
at furthest, in two days.'

'Notwithstanding which,' added Mr. Bounderby, 'if he can be laid
hold of any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of
clearing himself. As to you, I have nothing against you; what you
came and told me turns out to be true, and I have given you the
means of proving it to be true, and there's an end of it. I wish
you good night all! I must be off to look a little further into
this.'

Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with
him, kept close to him, and went away with him. The only parting
salutation of which he delivered himself was a sulky 'Good night,
father!' With a brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left
the house.

Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been
sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said:

'Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me
better.'

'It goes against me,' Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, 'to
mistrust any one; but when I am so mistrusted - when we all are - I
cannot keep such things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon
for having done you an injury. I don't think what I said now. Yet
I might come to think it again, wi' the poor lad so wronged.'

'Did you tell him in your letter,' inquired Sissy, 'that suspicion
seemed to have fallen upon him, because he had been seen about the
Bank at night? He would then know what he would have to explain on
coming back, and would be ready.'

'Yes, dear,' she returned; 'but I can't guess what can have ever
taken him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his
way. His way was the same as mine, and not near it.'

Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and
whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there were
news of him.

'I doubt,' said Rachael, 'if he can be here till next day.'

'Then I will come next night too,' said Sissy.

When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up
his head, and said to his daughter:

'Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do
you believe him to be implicated?'

'I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty.
I do not believe it now.'

'That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from
knowing him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they
so honest?'

'Very honest.'

'And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,' said Mr.
Gradgrind, musing, 'does the real culprit know of these
accusations? Where is he? Who is he?'

His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned
upon his hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of
fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his
side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy's at the moment. Sissy
flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip.

Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen
was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she
came home with the same account, and added that he had not been
heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the
moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his name,
or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever pursued the subject of the
robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it.

The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and
Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the
fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her
despatch to have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her
letter from him with his address, at a working colony, one of many,
not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to
that place, and the whole town looked for Stephen to be brought in
next day.

During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby
like his shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly
excited, horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke
in a hard rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt
up. At the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp
was at the station; offering to wager that he had made off before
the arrival of those who were sent in quest of him, and that he
would not appear.

The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael's
letter had gone, Rachael's letter had been delivered. Stephen
Blackpool had decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of
him. The only doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written
in good faith, believing that he really would come back, or warning
him to fly. On this point opinion was divided.

Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp
plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant. 'Was the
suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was
the man, and why did he not come back?'

Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of
night the echoes of his own words, which had rolled Heaven knows
how far away in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him
until morning.

CHAPTER V - FOUND

DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool.
Where was the man, and why did he not come back?

Every night, Sissy went to Rachael's lodging, and sat with her in
her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must
toil, whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were
indifferent who was lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the
melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of
their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and
night again. The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool's
disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as
monotonous a wonder as any piece of machinery in Coketown.

'I misdoubt,' said Rachael, 'if there is as many as twenty left in
all this place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.'

She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by
the lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was
already dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat
at the window where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter
light to shine on their sorrowful talk.

'If it hadn't been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you
to speak to,' pursued Rachael, 'times are, when I think my mind
would not have kept right. But I get hope and strength through
you; and you believe that though appearances may rise against him,
he will be proved clear?'

'I do believe so,' returned Sissy, 'with my whole heart. I feel so
certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all
discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt
of him than if I had known him through as many years of trial as
you have.'

'And I, my dear,' said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, 'have
known him through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so
faithful to everything honest and good, that if he was never to be
heard of more, and I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could
say with my last breath, God knows my heart. I have never once
left trusting Stephen Blackpool!'

'We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed
from suspicion, sooner or later.'

'The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,' said
Rachael, 'and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there,
purposely to comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi' me
when I am not yet free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved
I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words to the
young lady. And yet I - '

'You don't mistrust her now, Rachael?'

'Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can't at
all times keep out of my mind - '

Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that
Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention.

'I can't at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some
one. I can't think who 'tis, I can't think how or why it may be
done, but I mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way.
I mistrust that by his coming back of his own accord, and showing
himself innocent before them all, some one would be confounded, who
- to prevent that - has stopped him, and put him out of the way.'

'That is a dreadful thought,' said Sissy, turning pale.

'It is a dreadful thought to think he may be murdered.'

Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet.

'When it makes its way into my mind, dear,' said Rachael, 'and it
will come sometimes, though I do all I can to keep it out, wi'
counting on to high numbers as I work, and saying over and over
again pieces that I knew when I were a child - I fall into such a
wild, hot hurry, that, however tired I am, I want to walk fast,
miles and miles. I must get the better of this before bed-time.
I'll walk home wi' you.'

'He might fall ill upon the journey back,' said Sissy, faintly
offering a worn-out scrap of hope; 'and in such a case, there are
many places on the road where he might stop.'

'But he is in none of them. He has been sought for in all, and
he's not there.'

'True,' was Sissy's reluctant admission.

'He'd walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and
couldn't walk, I sent him, in the letter he got, the money to ride,
lest he should have none of his own to spare.'

'Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, Rachael.
Come into the air!'

Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael's shawl upon her shining black
hair in the usual manner of her wearing it, and they went out. The
night being fine, little knots of Hands were here and there
lingering at street corners; but it was supper-time with the
greater part of them, and there were but few people in the streets.

'You're not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand is cooler.'

'I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little
fresh. 'Times when I can't, I turn weak and confused.'

'But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at
any time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no news
comes to-morrow, let us walk in the country on Sunday morning, and
strengthen you for another week. Will you go?'

'Yes, dear.'

They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby's house
stood. The way to Sissy's destination led them past the door, and
they were going straight towards it. Some train had newly arrived
in Coketown, which had put a number of vehicles in motion, and
scattered a considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches
were rattling before them and behind them as they approached Mr.
Bounderby's, and one of the latter drew up with such briskness as
they were in the act of passing the house, that they looked round
involuntarily. The bright gaslight over Mr. Bounderby's steps
showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an ecstasy of excitement,
struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing them at the same
moment, called to them to stop.

'It's a coincidence,' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released
by the coachman. 'It's a Providence! Come out, ma'am!' then said
Mrs. Sparsit, to some one inside, 'come out, or we'll have you
dragged out!'

Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom
Mrs. Sparsit incontinently collared.

'Leave her alone, everybody!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great
energy. 'Let nobody touch her. She belongs to me. Come in,
ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit, reversing her former word of
command. 'Come in, ma'am, or we'll have you dragged in!'

The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an
ancient woman by the throat, and hauling her into a dwelling-house,
would have been under any circumstances, sufficient temptation to
all true English stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a
way into that dwelling-house and see the matter out. But when the
phenomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time
associated all over the town with the Bank robbery, it would have
lured the stragglers in, with an irresistible attraction, though
the roof had been expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly,
the chance witnesses on the ground, consisting of the busiest of
the neighbours to the number of some five-and-twenty, closed in
after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in after Mrs. Sparsit and
her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption into Mr.
Bounderby's dining-room, where the people behind lost not a
moment's time in mounting on the chairs, to get the better of the
people in front.

'Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!' cried Mrs. Sparsit. 'Rachael, young
woman; you know who this is?'

'It's Mrs. Pegler,' said Rachael.

'I should think it is!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. 'Fetch Mr.
Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!' Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling
herself up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of
entreaty. 'Don't tell me,' said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud. 'I have told
you twenty times, coming along, that I will not leave you till I
have handed you over to him myself.'

Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the
whelp, with whom he had been holding conference up-stairs. Mr.
Bounderby looked more astonished than hospitable, at sight of this
uninvited party in his dining-room.

'Why, what's the matter now!' said he. 'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am?'

'Sir,' explained that worthy woman, 'I trust it is my good fortune
to produce a person you have much desired to find. Stimulated by
my wish to relieve your mind, sir, and connecting together such
imperfect clues to the part of the country in which that person
might be supposed to reside, as have been afforded by the young
woman, Rachael, fortunately now present to identify, I have had the
happiness to succeed, and to bring that person with me - I need not
say most unwillingly on her part. It has not been, sir, without
some trouble that I have effected this; but trouble in your service
is to me a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold a real
gratification.'

Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby's visage exhibited an
extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions
of discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view.

'Why, what do you mean by this?' was his highly unexpected demand,
in great warmth. 'I ask you, what do you mean by this, Mrs.
Sparsit, ma'am?'

'Sir!' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly.

'Why don't you mind your own business, ma'am?' roared Bounderby.
'How dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family
affairs?'

This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit.
She sat down stiffly in a chair, as if she were frozen; and with a
fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one
another, as if they were frozen too.

'My dear Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. 'My darling boy!
I am not to blame. It's not my fault, Josiah. I told this lady
over and over again, that I knew she was doing what would not be
agreeable to you, but she would do it.'

'What did you let her bring you for? Couldn't you knock her cap
off, or her tooth out, or scratch her, or do something or other to
her?' asked Bounderby.

'My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be
brought by constables, and it was better to come quietly than make
that stir in such a' - Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly
round the walls - 'such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it
is not my fault! My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always lived
quiet, and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the
condition once. I have never said I was your mother. I have
admired you at a distance; and if I have come to town sometimes,
with long times between, to take a proud peep at you, I have done
it unbeknown, my love, and gone away again.'

Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient
mortification up and down at the side of the long dining-table,
while the spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs.
Pegler's appeal, and at each succeeding syllable became more and
more round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking up and down when Mrs.
Pegler had done, Mr. Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady:

'I am surprised, madam,' he observed with severity, 'that in your
old age you have the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your son,
after your unnatural and inhuman treatment of him.'

'Me unnatural!' cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. 'Me inhuman! To my
dear boy?'

'Dear!' repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 'Yes; dear in his self-made
prosperity, madam, I dare say. Not very dear, however, when you
deserted him in his infancy, and left him to the brutality of a
drunken grandmother.'

'I deserted my Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands.
'Now, Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and for
your scandal against the memory of my poor mother, who died in my
arms before Josiah was born. May you repent of it, sir, and live
to know better!'

She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by
the possibility which dawned upon him, said in a gentler tone:

'Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to - to be
brought up in the gutter?'

'Josiah in the gutter!' exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. 'No such a thing,
sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give
you to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of
parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought
it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and
cipher beautiful, and I've his books at home to show it! Aye, have
I!' said Mrs. Pegler, with indignant pride. 'And my dear boy
knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved
father died, when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could
pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to
do it, to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a
steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and
well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving. And
I'll give you to know, sir - for this my dear boy won't - that
though his mother kept but a little village shop, he never forgot
her, but pensioned me on thirty pound a year - more than I want,
for I put by out of it - only making the condition that I was to
keep down in my own part, and make no boasts about him, and not
trouble him. And I never have, except with looking at him once a
year, when he has never knowed it. And it's right,' said poor old
Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate championship, 'that I should keep down
in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do
a many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep
my pride in my Josiah to myself, and I can love for love's own
sake! And I am ashamed of you, sir,' said Mrs. Pegler, lastly,
'for your slanders and suspicions. And I never stood here before,
nor never wanted to stand here when my dear son said no. And I
shouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for being brought here.
And for shame upon you, Oh, for shame, to accuse me of being a bad
mother to my son, with my son standing here to tell you so
different!'

The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur
of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself
innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr.
Bounderby, who had never ceased walking up and down, and had every
moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and redder,
stopped short.

'I don't exactly know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'how I come to be
favoured with the attendance of the present company, but I don't
inquire. When they're quite satisfied, perhaps they'll be so good
as to disperse; whether they're satisfied or not, perhaps they'll
be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound to deliver a lecture on
my family affairs, I have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a
going to do it. Therefore those who expect any explanation
whatever upon that branch of the subject, will be disappointed -
particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he can't know it too soon. In
reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a mistake made,
concerning my mother. If there hadn't been over-officiousness it
wouldn't have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all
times, whether or no. Good evening!'

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