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

and wet, that little chair became his office for the day. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on that little chair was as much a part of Temple Bar (and known as well) as anything else that was there.

Arriving well before nine, Mr. Cruncher was able to touch his three-cornered hat to the oldest men in the world as they arrived for work at Tellson's. Jerry would stand beside him when he was not busy fighting with passing boys who were small enough for him to hurt. Father and son, so much the same and with their heads as close to each other as their eyes were, looked quietly out at the people passing by, like two monkeys. The older Jerry added to the monkey look by chewing on a piece of dry grass, and the ever moving eyes of the younger Jerry watched him doing it as much as he watched everything else on the street.

One of the inside workers put his head out the door and said, "Worker wanted!"

"Hooray, father! A job already!"

Wishing his father the best, young Jerry seated himself on the little chair, picked up the piece of dry grass that his father had been chewing, and thought, "Always covered with rust. His fingers are always covered with rust. Where does my father get that iron rust from? He don't get no iron rust here."

2. The Show

"You know the Old Bailey well, I'm sure?” said one of the very old workers to Mr. Cruncher.

"Umm... well... yes, sir," returned Jerry shyly. "I do know it."

"Good. And you know Mr. Lorry?"

"Oh yes, I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better," said Jerry, sounding like one of the witnesses in the old court as he finished, "better than I, as an honest worker, wish to know the Bailey, sir."

"Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the door-keeper this letter for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in."

"Into the court, sir?"

"Into the court."

Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to move a little closer to one another, and to ask each other, "What is this leading to?"

As an effect of this thought, he asked, "Am I to wait there, sir?"

"I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the letter to Mr. Lorry. Do anything you can to make Mr. Lorry see you, and show him where you are going to stand. Then your job is just to wait there until he wants you."

"Is that all, sir?"

"That's all. He wants a worker on hand to take a letter from him if he needs to send one. This letter tells him you're the worker."

As the old man carefully folded and put a name on the letter, Mr. Cruncher, who had been watching quietly, said, "So they must be judging someone for writing bad cheques this morning?"

"Treason!"

"That's death by torture, sir. Oooh! That's awful!"

"It's the law," said the old man, turning his surprised glasses in Jerry's direction. "It's the law."

"It's hard of the law to cut a man up, I think. It's hard enough to kill him, but it's very hard to cut him up, sir."

"Not at all," returned the old man. "Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care of itself. Those are my words to you."

"It's the wet, sir, what gets into my chest and voice," said Jerry. "I leave you to judge what a wet way of making a living mine is."

"Well," said the old man, "we all have our different ways to make a living. Some of us have wet ways and some of us have dry ways. Here's the letter. Now go along."

Jerry took the letter, and, secretly feeling less humble than his words showed, he said, "I can see that you too have had a hard life.” He bowed his head, told his son in passing where he was going, and then went on his way.

In those days they hanged people at Tyburn, so the street outside Newgate Prison was not known in the same way that it is today. But the prison was still an evil place, with every kind of bad action and deadly sickness free to move around in it. The sicknesses came into the court with the prisoners, and often they would jump from the prisoner to the judge himself. More than once the judge had marked his own death in marking the prisoner's death, and even died before the prisoner did. For most, the Old Bailey was like a deadly hotel yard, where sick travellers would ride off in wagons and coaches on a rough trip to the other world, covering some two and a half miles of open road. Few, if any, of the people watching along the way would see anything wrong in what was happening. That is how it is when people become used to a thing; and when they become used to it, they make it good in their minds even if it is not. The Bailey was also remembered for the special timbers that were used to hold prisoners by the head and hands while others shouted hateful words at them. It was a smart piece of furniture, because the pain it brought left no marks. Then there was the whipping post, a much loved instrument for making people part of a good and kind world when it was used well. Topping it all off was the blood-money. The Old Bailey was a place where, for a price, one could have another killed. This led to some of the most awful things that could happen under heaven.

On the whole, the Old Bailey was, at that time, a perfect picture of the teaching that "Whatever is, is right," a saying that would be as free from change as it is lazy, if it were not that it would also say of those who came there that none of them had ever been wrong.

Making his way through the crowd at this awful scene of action, with the ability of a man who often moved about secretly, Tellson's small job man found the door he was looking for, and handed in his letter through an opening in it. In those days, one paid for entertainment at the Old Bailey just as they paid to see the crazy people at Bedlam (but the price was higher at the Bailey). Because of this, there were guards at all of the doors -- all, that is, but the door where the criminals were brought in. Those were always wide open.

After some waiting and arguing, the door turned slowly just enough to let Mr. Jerry Cruncher squeeze himself into the court.

"What's up?” he whispered to the man next to him.

"Nothing yet."

"What's coming on?"

"The treason."

"Oh, the torturing one, eh?"

"Ah!" returned the man with enthusiasm. "He'll be pulled through the streets to be half-hanged, and then they'll take him down to be cut before his own face. His intestines will be taken out and burned while he looks on. Then his head will be cut off, and his body cut into four pieces. That's what they'll do."

"You mean, if they think he's guilty?” Jerry added to be sure.

"Oh, they'll find him guilty," said the other. "Don't you fear that."

At this point Mr. Cruncher turned to see the doorman make his way to Mr. Lorry with the letter. Mr. Lorry was at a table close to where the wig-wearing men were. He was not far from the one who was to argue for the prisoner. This man had many papers with him. Almost opposite that man was another with a wig. He had his hands in his pockets, and whenever Mr. Cruncher looked at him, then or later, he was always looking at the roof of the court. After Jerry did some loud coughing and rubbing his chin and lifting his hands, Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, saw him, moved his head to show that he saw him, and then sat down again.

"What's he got to do with the case?” asked the man Jerry had been whispering to.

"Blessed if I know," said Jerry.

"So what have you got to do with it, then, if one may ask?”

"Blessed if I know that either," said Jerry.

Just then the judge came in, and the talking stopped. From then on, all eyes were on the place where the prisoner would stand. Two policemen, who had been standing there, went out and returned with him.

Apart from the wig-wearing man who was looking at the roof, everyone looked at the prisoner with interest. Together they breathed a storm in his direction. Enthusiastic faces looked around posts and corners to see him better. People in the back stood up, so as not to miss one hair of him. People standing on the court floor stood up on their toes, putting their hands on the shoulders of others, to see every inch of him. Standing out in this group of people, like part of a living wall, was Jerry, breathing the smell of beer toward the prisoner (for he had had just a small drink on the way), and this joined with the beer and spirits and tea and coffee in the breathing of all who looked toward the prisoner, so that it was already turning to water on the big windows behind the prisoner.

What they were looking at was a young man, about 25, good-looking, with white skin, made darker by much time in the sun, and dark eyes. He was well dressed in black or dark grey. His long black hair was tied with a bow at the back of his neck. He was well controlled, bowed to the judge, and stood there quietly.

The kind of interest that the people had in this man was not the kind of interest that said much for people as animals. If he had not been in danger of being tortured to death, if even one part of his torture was to be passed over, by just that much the people would have lost interest in him. The body that was to be destroyed in such an awful way was the thing to see. Whatever reason each person gave for being there, to hide the truth from themselves, their real interest was that of cruel devils.

Quiet in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday said that he was not guilty of what the court said of him (with no end of confusing talk), namely that he had helped in a war against our wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving, and so on leader, our Lord the King, by reason of him having, at different times and in different ways, helped Louis, the French King in his war against our wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving, and so on; that was to say, by coming and going between the country of our said wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving and so on, and the country of the said French Louis, and falsely, cruelly, badly (and many other evil adverbs) telling the said French Louis what forces our said wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving, and so on, King had prepared to send to Canada and North America.

This much Jerry proudly understood, after much thought, to be saying that the one said (and over and over said) Charles Darnay, was standing there to be judged; that the jury was being brought in, and that Mr. Attorney-General was preparing to speak.

The man himself, who was (and who knew he was), in the minds of all the people looking at him, to be tortured, have his head cut off, and be cut into four pieces, did not show fear or any other emotion. He was quietly and seriously listening to all that was being said as he stood there with his hands resting on the horizontal timber bar in front of him.

Over his head was a mirror to throw the light down on him. The faces of many evil people had been seen in that mirror in the past, and they had moved away from the earth and from that mirror at the same time. It may be that the prisoner had a passing thought about others who had been there before him. Be that as it may, a movement of his body made a bar of light land on his face, and he looked up at the mirror. On seeing it, his face turned red.

He then turned his face away, toward the side of the court that was on his left, and his eyes landed on two people. The change in his look was so strong that all those people who had been looking at him turned to look at the same two people.

They could see a young woman who was little more than twenty, and an older man, who seemed to be her father. He was an interesting man, with very white hair, and a look on his face that was hard to put into words. It was the look of one who is thinking deeply, and talking to himself about what he is thinking. When doing this, he looked quite old. But when he pulled himself