A Tale of Two Cities

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was
so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every
day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for
him as he stood looking back at her.

"Be comforted!" he said, "I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette.
An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn
but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any
wretch who creeps along the streets.  Be comforted!  But, within myself,
I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall
be what you have heretofore seen me.  The last supplication but one
I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me."

"I will, Mr. Carton."

"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve
you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison,
and between whom and you there is an impassable space.  It is useless
to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul.  For you, and for any
dear to you, I would do anything.  If my career were of that better
kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it,
I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you.
Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere
in this one thing.  The time will come, the time will not be long
in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind
you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest
ties that will ever grace and gladden you.  O Miss Manette, when the
little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you
see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think
now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep
a life you love beside you!"

He said, "Farewell!" said a last "God bless you!" and left her.



XIV

The Honest Tradesman


To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in
Fleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and
variety of objects in movement were every day presented.  Who could
sit upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day,
and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever
tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward
from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red
and purple where the sun goes down!

With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams,
like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty
watching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of their
ever running dry.  Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful
kind, since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage
of timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life)
from Tellson's side of the tides to the opposite shore.  Brief as such
companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never
failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire
to have the honour of drinking her very good health.  And it was from
the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent
purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed.

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused
in the sight of men.  Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place,
but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him.

It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few,
and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so
unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that
Mrs. Cruncher must have been "flopping" in some pointed manner, when
an unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted his
attention.  Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of
funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to this
funeral, which engendered uproar.

"Young Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring,
"it's a buryin'."

"Hooroar, father!" cried Young Jerry.

The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious
significance.  The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he
watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear.

"What d'ye mean?  What are you hooroaring at?  What do you want to
conwey to your own father, you young Rip?  This boy is a getting
too many for _me_!" said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him.  "Him and
his hooroars!  Don't let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel
some more of me.  D'ye hear?"

"I warn't doing no harm," Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek.

"Drop it then," said Mr. Cruncher; "I won't have none of _your_
no harms.  Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd."

His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing
round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach
there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that were