A Tale of Two Cities, Dave Mckay, Charles Dickens [most inspirational books of all time TXT] 📗

like that. Lucie. His daughter. French. Where is she?"

This is she.

"Yes, it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde, is it not?"

It is.

"Ha! Evremonde has another place where he must be today. Lucie, her child. English. This is she?"

She and no other.

"Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, you have kissed a good freedom fighter, something new in your family, so remember it! Sydney Carton. Lawyer. English. Which is he?"

He is lying here, in this corner of the coach. He, too, is pointed out.

"It seems the English lawyer has fainted."

It is hoped he will be feeling better in the open air. It is said that he is not in good health, and that he has sadly separated from a friend who was not liked by the new government.

"Is that all? It is nothing much, that! Many are not liked by the new government, and must look out through the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?

"I am he. I must be, as I am the last."

It is Jarvis Lorry who has answered to all of the earlier questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has stepped down and stands with his hand on the coach door, answering to a group of guards. They walk slowly around the coach and climb slowly to the top to see what few suitcases are being carried on the roof. The local people who are waiting there push closer to the coach doors and greedily look in. A little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it by her, so that it can touch the wife of a rich man who was killed by the guillotine.

"Here are your papers, Jarvis Lorry, I've put my name on them."

"Can we leave, countryman?"

"You can leave. Forward, driver! Have a good trip!" "Goodbye to you, countrymen... And the first danger is over!"

These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he puts his hands together and looks up. There is fear in the coach, there is crying, there is the heavy breathing of the sleeping traveller.

"Are we not going too slowly? Can't you get them to go faster?” asks Lucie, hanging on to the old man.

"It would look like we are running from something, love. I must not push them too much. It would make them think the worst."

"Look back, look back and see if we are being followed!"

"The road is clear, love. So far they are not following us."

Houses in twos and threes pass by, a farm here and one there, broken down buildings, places for making colours, leather, or other things, open country, long lines of trees without any leaves on them. The hard rough road is under us, the soft deep mud on either side. Sometimes we fall into the mud when trying to go around the stones that shake us so. Sometimes we stick in the mud. When that happens the pain of waiting is so great that in our wild fear and hurry we want to get out and run, hide, do anything but stop.

Out of the open country and back again to broken down buildings, a farm here or there, places that make colours, leather, and other things, houses in twos and threes, long lines of trees without any leaves. Have these men tricked us, and taken us back by another road? Isn't this the same place again? Thank heaven, no. Just another village. Look back, look back and see if we are being followed! Quiet! The post office.

Slowly, our four horses are taken out; slowly, the coach stands in the little street without any horses and feeling like it will never move again; slowly, the new horses come to be seen, one by one; slowly, the new drivers follow, chewing on and folding together the strings on their whips; slowly, the old drivers count their money, get the wrong sums, and come to numbers that they are not happy with. All the time, our hearts are so full of emotion that they are moving so fast that they would win in a race against the fastest horse ever born.

At length, the new drivers are in their saddles and the old ones are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low wet grounds. Without warning, the drivers start talking quite loudly and the horses are pulled up, almost on their backsides. Are we being followed?

"Hey! You in the coach. Speak up!"

"What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at the window.

"How many did they say?"

"I don't understand you."

"At the last post office. How many went to the guillotine today?"

"Fifty-two."

"I said so! A brave number! My friend countryman here said it was only forty-two. Ten more heads are worth having. The guillotine works well. I love it. On forward! Go!"

The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is starting to wake up, and to say things. He thinks they are still together. He asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. Oh, think of us, kind Father, and help us. Look out, look out and see if we are being followed.

The wind is hurrying after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is running after us, and the whole wild night is trying to get us; but so far, we are being followed by nothing more.

14. The Knitting Done

At the same time that the fifty-two were waiting to leave the prison, Madam Defarge was holding a darkly secret council with The Punisher and Jack Three, who had served on the jury. Madam Defarge was not talking to them in the wine shop this time, but in the little shop of the woodcutter who had been a road worker in the past. The woodcutter himself did not take part in the meeting, but waited instead at a place near where they were talking, told not to speak until he was needed, and not to say what he thought until he was asked.

"But our Defarge," said Jack Three, "is surely a good freedom fighter, eh?"

"There is no one better," the loud-mouthed Punisher said in her high voice, "in France."

"Peace, little Punisher," said Madam Defarge, putting her hand on her helper's lips with a look that was a little angry. "Listen to what I say. My husband, good countryman, is a good fighter and a brave man. He has worked well for the new government, and people have confidence in him. But my husband is not perfect, and he is so weak as to back out of what we plan for the Doctor."

"It is sad," said Jack Three, shaking his head to show he was losing trust in the man, as he put his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth. "It is not quite like a good countryman; it is something we should not feel good about."

"See," said Madam, "I care nothing for this Doctor. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But the Evremonde people are to be destroyed, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father."

"She has a good head for it," said Jack Three. "I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked good when Samson held them up.” For such a rough, stupid man, he talked like he was an expert.

Madam Defarge looked down and thought for a little while.

"The child too," pointed out Jack Three, who liked the sound of his own words when he thought about them, "has golden hair and blue eyes. And we do not often have a child there. It is beautiful when we do!"

"In a word," said Madam Defarge, coming out of her thoughts, "I cannot trust my husband with this one. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I cannot tell him about my plans, but I also feel that if I wait too long, he will warn them, and they will run."

"This must never happen," said Jack Three. "No one must get away. We do not have half enough as it is. We should have a hundred and twenty a day."

"In a word," Madam Defarge went on, "my husband does not have the reason that I have for going after this family until they are all dead, and I do not have his reason for showing some kindness to this Doctor. So I must act on my own. Come over here, little countryman."

The woodcutter, who looked up to her and down on himself in fear for his life, came forward with his hand on his red hat."

"As for those movements she was making with her hands, little countryman," said Madam Defarge seriously, "making to the prisoners, are you ready to tell others about it even today?"

"Yes, yes, why not!" cried the woodcutter. "Every day, in all weather, from two to four, always moving her hands, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen it with my eyes."

He moved his hand in many directions as he talked, as if trying to show them some of the strange movements that she used.

"Clearly a plan to destroy the government," said Jack Three. "Anyone can see through it."

"Will the jury believe it?” asked Madam Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a dark smile.

"You can trust the country-loving jury, good countrywoman. I can answer for all of them."

"Now, let me see," said Madam Defarge, thinking again. "One more time! Can I let this Doctor live to keep my husband happy? I have no feeling either way. Can I let him live?"

"He would count as one head," pointed out Jack Three in a low voice. "We really do not have enough heads. I think it would be sad not to take him."

"He was making movements with her when I saw her," argued Madam Defarge. "I can't talk against one without talking against the other, and I must not be quiet, trusting the whole case to him, this little countryman here. For I'm not a bad witness."

The Punisher and Jack Three competed with each other in their enthusiasm for saying how she was the most wonderful of witnesses. The little countryman, not to be left out of the competition, said that she was a witness straight from heaven.

"He must face the truth," said Madam Defarge. "I cannot let him get off! You will be there at three o'clock; you will watch today's group being killed? I'm talking to you!"

She was talking to the woodcutter, who hurried to say he would be there, adding that he was the truest lover of his country, and that he would be the saddest of all lovers of the country if anything stopped him from being able to smoke his afternoon pipe while watching the funny government barber. He was so strong in saying this that one could think (and by the dark angry eyes that looked at him out of Madam Defarge's head, one maybe did think) that he had his own fears about joining them, every hour of the day.

"I," said Madam, "will be equally busy at the same place. After it's over, say at eight tonight, come to me in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people at my group meeting."

The woodcutter said he would be proud and happy to help her. When the countrywoman looked at him, he turned shy. Like a small dog trying to get away from something, he pulled back to his pile of sticks, where he could hide behind the handle of his saw.

Madam Defarge called the jury man and The Punisher closer to the door, and there told them more about her plan:

"She will be at home now, waiting for the time of his death. She will be crying for him. She will be acting in a way that shows she is against the government. She will be feeling sad for its enemies. I will go to her."

"What a wonderful woman; what a smart woman!" cried Jack Three happily. "Oh, my loved one!" cried The Punisher, and hugged her.

"Take my knitting," said Madam Defarge, putting it in her helper's hands, "and have it ready for me in my seat. Keep my chair for me. You go straight there, because there will probably be a bigger crowd than other days today."

"I will happily obey my boss," said The Punisher with enthusiasm, as she kissed her cheek. "You will not be late?"

"I'll be there before it starts."

"And before the carts arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul," said The Punisher, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street. "Before the carts arrive!"

Madam Defarge waved her hand weakly to show that she had heard and could be trusted to arrive in good time, and then pushed on through the mud, and around the corner of the prison wall. The Punisher and the man from the jury, looking after her as she walked away, liked very much both the look of her and the spiritual qualities that were a part of her.

There were many woman at that time, who were changed in an awful way by what was happening; but there