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IX
The Game Made
While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman's ma
«Jerry,» said Mr. Lorry. «Come here.»
Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance of him.
«What have you been, besides a messenger?»
After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of replying, «Agicultooral character.»
«My mind misgives me much,» said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger at him, «that you have used the respectable and great house of Tellson's as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. If you have, don't expect me to befriend you when you get back to England. If you have, don't expect me to keep your secret. Tellson's shall not be imposed upon.»
«I hope, sir,» pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, «that a gentleman like yourself wot I've had the honour of odd jobbing till I'm grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos so-I don't say it is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be all o' one side. There'd be two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don't pick up his fardens-fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens– half fardens! no, nor yet his quarter-a banking away like smoke at Tellson's, and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to their own carriages-ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that 'ud be imposing, too, on Tellson's. For you ca
«Ugh!» cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, «I am shocked at the sight of you.»
«Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,» pursued Mr. Cruncher, «even if it wos so, which I don't say it is-«
«Don't prevaricate,» said Mr. Lorry.
«No, I will not, sir,» returned Mr. Crunches as if nothing were further from his thoughts or practice-«which I don't say it is-wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, wot will errand you, message you, general– light-job you, till your heels is where your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it wos so, which I still don't say it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep his father's place, and take care of his mother; don't blow upon that boy's father-do not do it, sir-and let that father go into the line of the reg'lar diggin', and make amends for what he would have undug-if it wos so-by diggin' of 'em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin' the futur' keepin' of 'em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,» said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an a
«That at least is true,» said Mr. Lorry. «Say no more now. It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and repent in action-not in words. I want no more words.»
Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room. «Adieu, Mr. Barsad,» said the former; «our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me.»
He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done?
«Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access to him, once.»
Mr. Lorry's countenance fell.
«It is all I could do,» said Carton. «To propose too much, would be to put this man's head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it.»
«But access to him,» said Mr. Lorry, «if it should go ill before the Tribunal, will not save him.»
«I never said it would.»
Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his darling, and the heavy disappointment of his second arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell.
«You are a good man and a true friend,» said Carton, in an altered voice. «Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, however.»
Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual ma
«To return to poor Darnay,» said Carton. «Don't tell Her of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence.»
Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, and evidently understood it.
«She might think a thousand things,» Carton said, «and any of them would only add to her trouble. Don't speak of me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any little helpful work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She must be very desolate to-night.»
«I am going now, directly.»
«I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance on you. How does she look?»
«Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.»
«Ah!»
It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh-almost like a sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face, which was turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hill-side on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of his foot.