A Tale of Two Cities by Dave Mckay, Charles Dickens (easy readers .txt) 📖

the road worker, looking like he did not know what was happening. "The tall man was gone, and they looked for him -- how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?"

"The number is not important," said Defarge. "He had been hiding well, but in the end it was just his bad luck that he was found. Go on!"

"I was again at work on the side of the hill, and the sun was again about to go to bed. There I was putting my tools together to walk down to my house in the village below, where it is already dark, when I lift my eyes and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In the middle of them is a tall man with his arms tied -- to his sides -- like this!"

With the help of his always ready hat, he acted the part of a man with his elbows tied together behind him.

"So I stand to the side, sirs, by my pile of stones, to watch the soldiers and their prisoner go by (for it is a quiet road, that, where anything of interest is well worth stopping for), and at first, as they were coming toward me, I see no more than that they are six soldiers and a tall man tied up, and that they are almost black to me, with a red border on the side where the sun was going down behind them. Also, I see their shadows going out on the ground and up against the cliff on the opposite side of the road, like giants. And I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, step, step, step! But when they get quite close to me, I see who the tall man is, and he sees me and knows who I am. Ah, but he would have been happy to throw himself over the side of the hill on the down side of the road again, as he had done on the evening when I first saw him, close to that same place!"

The labourer talked like he was there now, and it was clear that he could see it clearly in his mind; maybe he had not seen much in his life.

"I do not let the soldiers know that I know who the tall man is; he does not show the soldiers that he knows me; we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. 'Come on!' says the leader of the group, pointing to the village. 'Bring him quickly to his death!' and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are sore from being tied so tightly, his timber shoes are big and slow, and he is crippled. Because he is crippled, and slow, they drive him forward with their guns -- like this!"

He acts the part of a man being forced forward by the timber end of their guns.

"As they go down the hill like crazy men running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered in dust, but he cannot touch it. And they laugh at that too. They bring him into the village, and all the village run out to look. They take him out past the windmill and up to the prison. All the village see the prison gates open in the darkness of the night -- and swallow him -- like this!"

He opened his mouth wide as he could, and shut it loudly as his teeth hit together. Seeing that he didn't want to destroy the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, "Go on, Jack."

"All the village," the road worker went on, standing up on his toes, and speaking in a low voice, "falls back; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that sad one behind the locks and bars of the prison on the steep rocky hill, never to come out of it, but to die. In the morning, with my tools on my shoulder, eating my piece of black bread as I go, I do a walk around the prison on my way back to work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of his high iron cage, still covered in blood and dust, and looking out. He has no free hand to wave to me. It is too dangerous for me to call out to him. He looks at me like he is a dead man."

Defarge and the other three looked darkly at each other. The looks on all of their faces are dark, controlled, and full of hate as they listened to the story coming from this man from the country. The spirit of all of them, while secret, was one of strength too. They had the air of a rough court; Jack One and Two sitting on the old mattress, each with his chin resting on his hand and his eyes on the road worker; Jack Three, equally interested, on one knee behind them, with his hand always moving across the nerves around his mouth and nose; and Defarge standing between them and the story teller, whom he had put in the light of the window, looking first from him to them and then from them to him.

"Go on, Jack," said Defarge.

"He stays up there in his iron cage for some days. The village looks at him secretly, for it is afraid. But from a distance, it looks up at the prison on the steep rocks; and in the evening, when the work of the day is finished and they come together by the fountain, all faces are turned toward the prison. In the past, they were always looking toward the building where news and mail were received, but now they looked toward the prison. They whisper at the fountain that while it is said that he will die, it is going to wait on someone in Paris who is saying that the man was angry because of the death of his child. They say that someone is asking the King himself. What do I know? It's possible. Maybe yes, maybe no."

"Listen to this, Jack," Number One of that name seriously put in. "A letter was given to the King and to the Queen. All of us here, apart from you, saw the King take it, in his coach, on the street, sitting beside the Queen. It's Defarge, whom you see, who, in danger of losing his life, ran out in front of the horses with the letter in his hand."

"And hear this too, Jack!" said Number Three, who was down on one knee, his fingers still moving over his face like he was hungry for something, but not for food or drink. "The guards, on horse and on foot, circled around Defarge and hit him. You hear?"

"I hear, sirs."

"Go on then," said Defarge.

"On the other hand, they whisper at the fountain," the man from the country went on, "that he was brought to our part of the country to be killed, and that nothing will stop it. They even whisper that because he has killed Sir, and because Sir is the father of his workers, he will be killed as one who has killed his own father. One old man says that his right hand, holding the knife, will be burned off before his face. He says that, into cuts that will be made in his arms, his chest, and his legs, there'll be poured hot oil, melted metal, and other chemicals. And in the end, his body will be pulled into four parts by four strong horses. That old man says all this was done to a prisoner who tried to kill King Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he is telling the truth? I have no schooling."

"Listen again, Jack!" said the man with a hand moving over his face. "The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris, and the worst thing about the crowd of people who came to watch was that rich, well-dressed women who were enthusiastic about staying until the end -- until the end, Jack, after it was dark, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! Yes, it happened… years ago. How old are you?"

"Thirty-five," said the road worker, who looked sixty.

"It happened when you were more than ten years old. You could have seen it."

"Enough!" said Defarge seriously. "Long live the Devil. Go on."

"Well, some whisper this, and some whisper that. They speak of nothing else; even the fountain seems to dance to their music. At last, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, soldiers come down from the prison, hitting the end of their guns on the stones of the little street. Workers dig, workers hammer, soldiers laugh and sing. In the morning, by the fountain there is a hanging stage forty feet high, poisoning the water."

The road worker looked not at the roof, but through it, and pointed like he could see the hanging stage somewhere in the sky.

"All work is stopped. We all come together there. Nobody leads the cows out; the cows are there with us. At noon, the drums sound. Soldiers have walked into the prison during the night and they come with him now, tied as before, and with a ball of cloth in his mouth, tied like this, with a tight string, making him look almost like he was laughing.” He showed them by using his hands to pull the corners of his mouth up toward his ears. "On the top of the stage is the knife he had used to kill the Marquis, standing on its handle. He is hanged there, forty feet high -- and is left hanging there, poisoning the water."

They looked at one another as he rubbed his face with his blue hat. Just telling the story had started him sweating.

"It's awful, sirs. How can the women and children get water? Who can go there to talk in the evening under the shadow of his body hanging up there? When I left the village on Monday evening, as the sun was going down, the shadow of that body reached across the church, the windmill, the prison -- it seemed to go across the whole earth, sirs, to where the sky meets the ground!"

The hungry man chewed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger shook with the feeling that was on him.

"That's all, sirs. I left as the sun went down (like I had been warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half of the next day, until I met (as I was warned I would) this friend. With him, I came on, now riding and now walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. And here you see me!"

"After a dark, sad minute with no one saying a word, the first Jack said, "Good! Your actions and your story have been good. Will you wait for us for a little while, outside the door?"

"I would be glad to," said the road worker, and Defarge led him to the top of the steps where he sat and waited while Defarge returned to talk with the others.

The three were standing and their heads were close together when Defarge came back into the room.

"What do you say, Jack?” asked Number One. "Do we add this name to the list?"

"Add him, to be destroyed," returned Defarge.

"Wonderful!" said the hungry man.

"The castle and all the family?” asked the first?

"The castle and all the family," said Defarge. "Destroy them."

The hungry man repeated with great happiness, "Wonderful!" and started chewing on another finger.

"Are you sure," asked Jack Two of Defarge, "that no trouble will come from the way we keep the list? I know it's safe, because no one apart from ourselves can read it; but will we always be able to read it... or I should say, will she?"

"Jack," returned Defarge, pulling himself up tall, "If my wife had tried to keep the list in her mind alone she would not lose a word of it, not even part of a word. But knitted in her own language, it will always be as clear as the sun. Trust Madam Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest person that has ever lived to kill himself than to have even one letter of his name or of his evil actions fall from the list that Madam Defarge is knitting."

There were words of agreement, and then the hungry man asked, "Is this country labourer to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is very stupid, and I think that makes him a little dangerous."

"He knows nothing," said Defarge, "at least nothing more than would have him hanged from the same height. Let him stay with me. I will take care of him, and put him back on the road to his home. He wants