Hard Times
about such things, for you are very well aware I don’t; but that such is
the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can’t change it. Why do I say this?’
‘Not, I fear,’ observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, ‘to spare me.’
‘Hear me out,’ said Bounderby, ‘and refrain from cutting in till your
turn comes round. I say this, because highly connected females have been
astonished to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself,
and to witness her insensibility. They have wondered how I have suffered
it. And I wonder myself now, and I won’t suffer it.’
‘Bounderby,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, ‘the less we say to-night
the better, I think.’
‘On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the better, I
think. That is,’ the consideration checked him, ‘till I have said all I
mean to say, and then I don’t care how soon we stop. I come to a
question that may shorten the business. What do you mean by the proposal
you made just now?’
‘What do I mean, Bounderby?’
‘By your visiting proposition,’ said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk
of the hayfield.
‘I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner,
for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may
tend to a gradual alteration for the better in many respects.’
‘To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?’ said
Bounderby.
‘If you put it in those terms.’
‘What made you think of this?’ said Bounderby.
‘I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood. Is it
asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid in
trying to set her right? You have accepted a great charge of her; for
better for worse, for—’
Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to
Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with an angry start.
‘Come!’ said he, ‘I don’t want to be told about that. I know what I took
her for, as well as you do. Never you mind what I took her for; that’s
my look out.’
‘I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be more or
less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and that some yielding on your
part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may not only be an act of
true kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards Louisa.’
‘I think differently,’ blustered Bounderby. ‘I am going to finish this
business according to my own opinions. Now, I don’t want to make a
quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the truth, I don’t
think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a subject.
As to your gentleman-friend, he may take himself off, wherever he likes
best. If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my mind; if he don’t fall
in my way, I shan’t, for it won’t be worth my while to do it. As to your
daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and might have done better by
leaving Loo Gradgrind, if she don’t come home to-morrow, by twelve
o’clock at noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I
shall send her wearing apparel and so forth over here, and you’ll take
charge of her for the future. What I shall say to people in general, of
the incompatibility that led to my so laying down the law, will be this.
I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up; she’s the daughter of
Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing-up; and the two horses wouldn’t
pull together. I am pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man, I
believe; and most people will understand fast enough that it must be a
woman rather out of the common, also, who, in the long run, would come up
to my mark.’
‘Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby,’ urged Mr.
Gradgrind, ‘before you commit yourself to such a decision.’
‘I always come to a decision,’ said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: ‘and
whatever I do, I do at once. I should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind’s
addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he
knows of him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did,
after his making himself a party to sentimental humbug. I have given you
my decision, and I have got no more to say. Good night!’
So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed. At five minutes
past twelve o’clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby’s property to be
carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind’s; advertised his country
retreat for sale by private contract; and resumed a bachelor life.
CHAPTER IV
LOST
THE robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not cease to
occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of that
establishment now. In boastful proof of his promptitude and activity, as
a remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more
admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the mud instead of the sea, he
liked to show how little his domestic affairs abated his business ardour.
Consequently, in the first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even
advanced upon his usual display of bustle, and every day made such a rout
in renewing his investigations into the robbery, that the officers who
had it in hand almost wished it had never been committed.
They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although they had been so
quiet since the first outbreak of the matter, that most people really did
suppose it to have been abandoned as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No
implicated man or woman took untimely courage, or made a self-betraying
step. More remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool could not be heard of, and
the mysterious old woman remained a mystery.
Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs of stirring
beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s investigations was, that he
resolved to hazard a bold burst. He drew up a placard, offering Twenty
Pounds reward for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, suspected of
complicity in the robbery of Coketown Bank on such a night; he described
the said Stephen Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated height, and
manner, as minutely as he could; he recited how he had left the town, and
in what direction he had been last seen going; he had the whole printed
in great black letters on a staring broadsheet; and he caused the walls
to be posted with it in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon
the sight of the whole population at one blow.
The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that morning to disperse
the groups of workers who stood in the tardy daybreak, collected round
the placards, devouring them with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the
eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not read. These people,
as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud—there was always
some such ready to help them—stared at the characters which meant so much
with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any
aspect of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and
full of evil. Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the matter
of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling
wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the Hands cleared out again into
the streets, there were still as many readers as before.
Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that night;
and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the printer, and had
brought it in his pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the
down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow-brothers and
fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellow-men, what a to-do was
there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called ‘that damning document,’
and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man
community! ‘Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of
those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and
of Union, is appropriately capable! Oh, my prostrate friends, with the
galling yoke of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism
treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which
right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your bellies
all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the garden—oh, my
brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you say,
_now_, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and
about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this degrading and
disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this
abominable advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you
crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like
race that happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, my compatriots,
happily cast him out and sent him forth! For you remember how he stood
here before you on this platform; you remember how, face to face and foot
to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember
how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with
not an inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst
us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the
avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar! And
now, my friends—my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that
stigma—my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose
scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my
friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when,
with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his
native deformity, a What? A thief! A plunderer! A proscribed fugitive,
with a price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble character
of the Coketown operative! Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred
bond, to which your children and your children’s children yet unborn have
set their infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the part of the
United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous
for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool,
weaver, referred to in this placard, having been already solemnly
disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the
shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his
dishonest actions!’
Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort. A few
stern voices called out ‘No!’ and a score or two hailed, with assenting
cries of ‘Hear, hear!’ the caution from one man, ‘Slackbridge, y’or over
hetter in’t; y’or a goen too fast!’ But these were pigmies against an
army; the general assemblage subscribed to the gospel according to
Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively
panting at them.
These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their
homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some minutes
before, returned.
‘Who is it?’ asked Louisa.
‘It is Mr. Bounderby,’ said Sissy, timid of the name, ‘and your brother
Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says her name is Rachael, and that you
know her.’
‘What do they want, Sissy dear?’
‘They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, and seems angry.’
‘Father,’ said Louisa, for he was present, ‘I cannot refuse to see them,
for a reason that will explain itself. Shall they come in here?’
As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring them. She
reappeared with them directly. Tom was last; and remained standing in
the obscurest part of the room, near the door.
‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said her husband, entering with a cool nod, ‘I don’t
disturb you, I hope. This is an unseasonable hour, but here is a young
woman who has been making statements which render my visit necessary.
Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for some obstinate reason