0047 BLEAKHOUSE CHAPTER 46

Stop Him!


Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since
the sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it
fills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon
lights burning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's,
heavily, heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp,
too, winks in Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they
are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as
admitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit
for life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and
is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on
Tom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep.

Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of
Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom
shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by
constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of
figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or
by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to
splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his
mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the
midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly
clear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be
reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice.
And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in
his old determined spirit.

But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and
they serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of
Tom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion
somewhere. It shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream
(in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of
a Norman house, and his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the
infamous alliance. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a
cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one
obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a
wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its
retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of
the proud and to the highest of the high. Verily, what with
tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has his revenge.

It is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by
night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the
more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the
imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day
carries it. The day begins to break now; and in truth it might be
better for the national glory even that the sun should sometimes
set upon the British dominions than that it should ever rise upon
so vile a wonder as Tom.

A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for
sleep to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a
restless pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted
by curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the
miserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright
dark eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and
there, he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied
it before.

On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main
street of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy
houses, shut up and silent. No waking creature save himself
appears except in one direction, where he sees the solitary figure
of a woman sitting on a door-step. He walks that way.
Approaching, he observes that she has journeyed a long distance and
is footsore and travel-stained. She sits on the door-step in the
manner of one who is waiting, with her elbow on her knee and her
head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas bag, or bundle, she has
carried. She is dozing probably, for she gives no heed to his
steps as he comes toward her.

The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to
where the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her.
Looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?"

"I'm walting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--
not here," the woman patiently returns. "I'm waiting here because
there will be sun here presently to warm me."

"I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the
street."

"Thank you, sir. It don't matter."

A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or
condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many
people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little
spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily.

"Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am a
doctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world."

He knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand
he can soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection,
saying, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the
wounded place when she lifts it up to the light.

"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very
sore."

"It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear
upon her cheek.

"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't
hurt you."

"Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!"

He cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully
examined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes
a small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While
he is thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a
surgery in the street, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?"

"How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished.

"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on
your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework
in different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel
to their wives too."

The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her
injury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her
forehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops
them again.

"Where is he now?" asks the surgeon.

"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the
lodging-house."

"He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and
heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal
as he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved
it. You have no young child?"

The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it's
Liz's."

"Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!"

By this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "I
suppose you have some settled home. Is it far from here?" he asks,
good-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and
curtsys.

"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint
Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start
like, as if you did."

"Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in
return. Have you money for your lodging?"

"Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. He
tells her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she
is very welcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all-
Alone's is still asleep, and nothing is astir.

Yes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which
he descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a
ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the
soiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and
furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth
whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is
so intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a
stranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He
shades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other
side of the way, and goes shrinking and creeping on with his
anxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging in
shreds. Clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, it
would be impossible to say. They look, in colour and in substance,
like a bundle of rank leaves of swampy growth that rotted long ago.

Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a
shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall
how or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a
form. He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or
refuge, still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force
on his remembrance.

He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light,
thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and
looking round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed,
followed by the woman.

"Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breath less. "Stop
him, sir!"

He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is
quicker than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes
up half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the
woman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not
knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in
chase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but
each time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away
again. To strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell
and disable him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so
the grimly ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive,
hard-pressed, takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no
thoroughfare. Here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is
brought to bay and tumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who
stands and gasps at him until the woman comes up.

"Oh, you, Jo!" cries the woman. "What? I have found you at last!"

"Jo," repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, "Jo! Stay. To
be sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before
the coroner."

"Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers Jo. "What of
that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I
unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to
be? I've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt
by another on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The
inkwhich warn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me,
he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come
across my crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be
inkwhiched. I only wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't
go and make a hole in the water, I'm sure I don't."

He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so
real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a
growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in
neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him.
He says to the woman, "Miserable creature, what has he done?"

To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure
more amazedly than angrily, "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you
at last!"

"What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?"

"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted
by me, and that's the wonder of it."

Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting
for one of them to unravel the riddle.

"But he was along with me, sir," says the woman. "Oh, you Jo! He
was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young
lady, Lord bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when
I durstn't, and took him home--"

Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror.

"Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like
a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been
seen or heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that
young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her
beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young
lady now if it wasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape,
and her sweet voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do
you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?"
demands the woman, beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and
breaking into passionate tears.

The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing
his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the
ground, and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding
against which he leans rattles.

Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but
effectually.

"Richard told me--" He falters. "I mean, I have heard of this--
don't mind me for a moment, I will speak presently."

He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered
passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure,
except that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is
so very remarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention.

"You hear what she says. But get up, get up!"

Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the
manner of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding,
resting one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing
his right hand over his left and his left foot over his right.

"You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here
ever since?"

"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning,"
replies Jo hoarsely.

"Why have you come here now?"

Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no
higher than the knees, and finally answers, "I don't know how to do
nothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and
I thought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and
lay down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and
then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur
to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-
chivying on me--like everybody everywheres."

"Where have you come from?"

Jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees
again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in
a sort of resignation.

"Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?"

"Tramp then," says Jo.

"Now tell me," proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome
his repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with
an expression of confidence, "tell me how it came about that you
left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as
to pity you and take you home."

Jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares,
addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady,
that he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her,
that he would sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have
had his unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and
that she wos wery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself
throughout as if in his poor fashion he really meant it, and
winding up with some very miserable sobs.

Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains
himself to touch him. "Come, Jo. Tell me."

"No. I dustn't," says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. "I
dustn't, or I would."

"But I must know," returns the other, "all the same. Come, Jo."

After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again,
looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "Well, I'll
tell you something. I was took away. There!"

"Took away? In the night?"

"Ah!" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and
even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and
through the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be
looking over or hidden on the other side.

"Who took you away?"

"I dustn't name him," says Jo. "I dustn't do it, sir.

"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me.
No one else shall hear."

"Ah, but I don't know," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as
he DON'T hear."

"Why, he is not in this place."

"Oh, ain't he though?" says Jo. "He's in all manner of places, all
at wanst."

Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning
and good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He
patiently awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his
patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name
in his ear.

"Aye!" says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?"

"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble,
'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now.
I'm a-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as I'm up
to."

"No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with
you?"

"Put me in a horsepittle," replied Jo, whispering, "till I was
discharged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you
may call half-crowns--and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he
ses. 'You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he
ses. 'Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of
London, or you'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me,
and he'll see me if I'm above ground," concludes Jo, nervously
repeating all his former precautions and investigations.

Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but
keeping an encouraging eye on Jo, "He is not so ungrateful as you
supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an
insufficient one."

"Thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims Jo. "There now! See how hard
you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn
ses, and it's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I
knows it."

"Now, Jo," says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, "come with me and
I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in.
If I take one side of the way and you the other to avoid
observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make
me a promise."

"I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir."

"Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this
time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come
along. Good day again, my good woman."

"Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again."

She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises
and takes it up. Jo, repeating, "Ony you tell the young lady as I
never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!" nods and
shambles and shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and
half cries, a farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along
after Allan Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of
the street. In this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's
into the broad rays of the sunlight and the purer air.