Chapter

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II

HARD TIMES

OUTLINE

BOOK THE FIRST: SOWING

"In this life we want nothing but facts, sir; nothing but facts." So spoke Mr. Thomas Gradgrind to the schoolmaster, and the government inspector. Then Mr. Gradgrind proceeded to examine the scholars; and it appeared that Cecilia, or "Sissy" Jupe, the horse-rider's daughter, a pretty, sweetfaced girl, was unable to give the scientific definition of a horse; whereas Bitzer, a sandy-haired, freckled-faced lad, knew that this animal is graminivorous, that he has forty teeth, and numerous other facts of a like nature.

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The inspection ended, Mr. Gradgrind started homeward, thinking of his own two children, Louisa and Tom, — model children, thoroughly crammed with facts, and perfectly ignorant of fancies or fairies. But on the way he passed a circus-tent, and was horrified to find that his model children were both down on the ground trying to peer through a hole in the tent; - and Louisa was fifteen years old! Mr. Gradgrind rebuked them severely, and to Louisa he said, "What would Mr. Bounderby say? What would Mr. Bounderby say?"

IV

Now Mr. Bounderby was a pompous, bustling, thriving manufacturer in Coketown, a friend of Mr. Gradgrind's. His boast was that he had come up from the gutter by his own exertions, and that he was a practical man with no nonsense or fancies about him, a man of facts. Mr. Bounderby's advice was to remove Sissy Jupe from the school, as being a contamiV nating influence; and he, with Mr. Gradgrind, sought her father's abode. It proved to be a poor, shabby place where Jupe, the clown, lived with Sissy and with Merrylegs, the performing dog. Poor Jupe had not been doing well of late; he had been hissed in the ring; and that very day he had disappeared, taking Merrylegs with him. This being the case, Mr. Gradgrind (who was really a kind-hearted man at bottom) offered to take Sissy into his family, if only, as he remarked to Bounderby, as a warning to Louisa. So Sissy said good-by to all the company,

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including Sleary, the proprietor, a stout, wheezy, brandy-drinking, but kindly old soul.

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At first she was taken to Mr. Bounderby's house, which (Bounderby being a bachelor) was presided over by Mrs. Sparsit, a hook-nosed, highly connected old lady, whose mother was a Powler. Bounderby was very proud of having this aristocratic person in his train, the more so because he - so at least he said—was born in a ditch, and his mother was probably the worst woman in the world, with one exception, namely, his drunken old grandmother. Thence Sissy Jupe went to the Gradgrind mansion, partly as an attendant upon Mrs. Gradgrind, a querulous invalid. There was a kind of feeling in the family that Louisa was destined to marry Mr. Bounderby. She disliked him; but Tom, who was now in his office, hoped that she would marry Bounderby, in order to make matters easy for him; and Tom was the only thing in the world that Louisa cared about. Sissy Jupe, though of course she said nothing, thought it a horrible fate for Louisa. Poor Sissy, by the way, was very backward in learning the facts that were taught in the Bounderby school. Among the workmen in Mr. Bounderby's factory was one Stephen Blackpool, an honest, industrious man, who had been made miserable for many years by a vile, drunken wife. Stephen went to his employer to inquire if he could get a divorce; and Bounderby in his usual polite and sympathetic manner told him that he could, by special act of Parliament, and at the price of £1500, or perhaps double that amount. Stephen went off in despair, for he loved Rachael, a good, virtuous girl.

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On his way home Stephen met a queer old lady, very neatly dressed and respectable, who asked him many questions about Mr. Bounderby with a strange air of interest. When he arrived at his poor room, there sat Rachael, nursing his wife, who was ill from dissipation, as tenderly as if she were the best-beloved of women. Louisa had now become a young woman, and, at her father's suggestion, she agreed to marry Bounderby. Sissy Jupe pitied her, and Louisa felt this and tacitly resented it; and yet she was an object of pity to herself. So they were married, and Mrs. Sparsit, who persisted in regarding Mr. Bounderby as a victim, retired to comfortable quarters at the bank where Tom Gradgrind and Bitzer, the light-haired, freckle-faced lad, were employed.

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Chapter

II

IV

BOOK THE SECOND: REAPING

One evening a handsome, languid young man of five I and thirty called at the bank and asked the way to Mr. Bounderby's house. This was Mr. James Harthouse, a member of Parliament, who had come down to Coketown on political business. That evening he dined with the Bounderbys, and Mr. Bounderby took the occasion to dilate upon the hap'orth of stewed eels which, at eight years old, he had purchased in the streets, and upon the inferior water, specially used for laying the dust, with which he had washed them down. To Mr. Harthouse, Louisa was a puzzle. Her features were handsome, but their natural play was so locked up that it was impossible to guess at their genuine expression. She was perfectly cold and indifferent. Will nothing move her? thought Mr. Harthouse. Yes, there was something. Tom appeared. She changed as the door opened, and broke into a beaming smile. Yet he was a sullen whelp, and ungracious even to his sister. But Mr. Harthouse entertained the III whelp in his room at the hotel that night, and, with the help of brandy and strong tobacco, got from him a full account of Louisa, and of her reasons for marrying Bounderby. Very soon poor Stephen had another trouble on his hands: all the work-people, excepting himself, resolved to strike for higher pay; and, when he refused to join them, he became a solitary outcast, an object of hatred to his former friends and associates. Mr. Bounderby sent for him, and interrogated him as to the plans and designs of the striking workmen. Stephen refused to betray them; and thereupon Bounderby turned him off. Taking his way sadly from the Bounderby mansion, Stephen met VI both Rachael and the queer little old woman already mentioned, and they both went with him to his room for a farewell cup of tea; for Stephen was obliged to seek work elsewhere. While they were there Louisa came in to express her sympathy with Stephen, and to offer him money. Tom was with her; and he took Stephen aside, and asked him to hang about the bank for an hour or two, after his work was done, on the few days that remained before his departure. Tom represented that he might want some service of Stephen; and Stephen accordingly, but with reluctance, haunted the bank after dark, but nothing came of it. Mr. Bounderby had now acquired a handsome suburban resVII idence, and Mr. James Harthouse was there a great deal, laying siege to Louisa. He managed to become a confidant of Tom (who had lost money in gambling), and of Louisa, so far as her relations with Tom were concerned.

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While affairs were in this state there came an explosion: the bank was robbed ; and Stephen Blackpool, who had left town, and who had been seen lurking near the bank, was thought to be the robber.

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After the robbery Mrs. Sparsit, whose nerves were much

IX shaken, removed to the Bounderby mansion, where, by contin

ual insinuations, she brought Mr. Bounderby to think that he was a much abused and neglected man. Poor Mrs. Gradgrind, who, since her marriage, had never been much alive, now faded out of existence, nursed and comforted by Sissy Jupe, on whom the whole family had come to depend, notwithstanding the lamentable deficiency in her facts.

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The robber of the bank remained undiscovered, but Tom strongly opined that it was Stephen. Mr. Harthouse agreed with him, as did most people, and the old woman who had been seen at his house was suspected of complicity. Mrs. Sparsit watched with eager eye the growing intimacy between Harthouse and Louisa; and she continued to stir up the muddy depths of Bounderby's selfish nature. "Sir," she would say, "there was wont to be an elasticity in you which I sadly miss." At last, her watching of Louisa was rewarded. One evening (Bounderby being away), Harthouse came to see her, his wife. They met in the garden; and Mrs. Sparsit saw that he had his arm around Louisa's waist, and she heard him tell Louisa that he loved her. Then Louisa dismissed him, and half an hour later, although now it rained in torrents, Louisa, secretly followed by Mrs. Sparsit, left the house alone, walked to the railroad station, and took a train for Coketown, where Mrs. Sparsit lost her. But Louisa went, not to her lover, but to her father's house. "Father," she cried, "your philosophy and your teaching will not save me. Save me by some other means."

XII

BOOK THE THIRD GARNERING

Chapter Louisa took to her bed, and was taken care of by Sissy I Jupe, who also saw Mr. Harthouse for Louisa, and, with a quiet confidence which he could not resist, asked him to leave the

town. Mr. Gradgrind began to think that perhaps, after all,

II his theory of bringing up children on facts exclusively was imperfect. Mr. Bounderby, however, had no misgivings. Mrs. Sparsit told him that Louisa had fled with Harthouse; III but when he learned the true state of affairs, he demanded that Louisa should return to his house instantly or never. She remained with her father. Both Louisa and her father IV began to fear, though they did not say so to each other, that Tom was the thief who had robbed the bank. Rachael declared that

Stephen was innocent, that she had written to him, and that he would be back within two days to clear his name. A week passed,

and still he had not come.

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And now Mrs. Sparsit distinguished herself again by capV turing the mysterious old woman, and whom should she prove to be, greatly to Mr. Bounderby's shame, but his own mother, who had brought him up well and given him an education. He had kept her in the background in order that he might brag VI about raising himself from the gutter. The next day was Sunday, and Rachel and Sissy Jupe, walking in the fields, found Stephen Blackpool lying at the bottom of a pit in which he had fallen on his way back to Coketown. He was mortally hurt, and soon after he had been rescued by a gang of men, died in Rachael's arms. But first he had said to Mr. Gradgrind (he and Bounderby and many others were present): "Sir, yo' will clear me an' mak' my name good?" "How can I do so?" asked Mr. Gradgrind. "Yo'r son will tell yo' how," was the reply. Thereupon, at a hint from Sissy, Tom fled, she having given him a letter to Sleary, whose company were performing at a neighboring town. There Louisa and her father and Sissy (who had come by different routes) found him the next day, disguised as a negro groom. But while they were concocting measures Bitzer appeared, and arrested Tom. Sleary said that he could not undertake to protect Tom, but secretly he arranged with Sissy a plan for rescuing him. Sleary, with Tom and Bitzer, started to drive to the railroad, the horse being one of Mr. Sleary's best performers. They were accompanied by a learned dog, whom Mr. Sleary had instructed to keep an eye upon Bitzer. When they had gone half way, the horse (at a private signal from Sleary) stopped, and began to dance. At this moment there happened along (very strangely) Mr. Childers, one of Sleary's people, driving a very fast pony, also a professional. Tom, at a hint from Sleary, jumped down, got into the pony cart, and was driven off at the rate of fifteen miles per hour. Bitzer tried to follow, but the dog pinned him, and he was glad enough to get back in the wagon. It was a long while before the horse would stop dancing; then he went to sleep, and Sleary and Bitzer did not get back till next morning; and in the mean time Tom had escaped in a steamer from Liverpool.

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Five years later Josiah Bounderby died in a fit. Louisa did not marry again, and Rachael never married; but Sissy Jupe's children were Louisa's pets; and Mr. Gradgrind, a whitehaired, decrepit man, henceforth made his facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity.