《A Tale of Two Cities》　Book2　CHAPTER
XIV The Honest Tradesman
　　　　by Charles Dickens

TO the eyes of Mr.
Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him,
a vast number and variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit
upon anything in Fleet Street during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and
deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the other
ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of
red and purple where the sun goes down!



With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen
rustic who has for several centuries been on duty watching one stream--saving that Jerry
had no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a
hopeful kind, since Ball part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women
(mostly of a full habit and past the middle of life) from Tellson's side of the tides to
the opposite ore. Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher
never failed to become so interested the lady as to express a strong desire to have the
honour drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts towed upon him towards the
execution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now
observed.



Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men.
Mr. Cruncher, sitting on stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as
possible, and looked about him.



It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few, and belated women
few, and when his affairs in general were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion
in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been `flopping' in some pointed manner, when an
unusual concourse pouring down Fleet Street westward, attracted his attention. Looking
that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that me kind of funeral was coming along, and that there
was popular objection to this funeral, which engendered uproar.



`Young Jerry,' said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, `it's a buryin'.'



`Hooroar, father!' cried Young Jerry.



The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious significance. The elder
gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young
gentleman on the ear.



`What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey to your own
father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for me!' said Mr. Cruncher,
surveying him. `Him and his hooroars. Don't let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel
some more of me. D'ye hear?'



`I warn't doing no harm,' Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek.



`Drop it then,' said Mr. Cruncher; `I won't have none of your no harms. Get atop of that
there seat, and look at the crowd.'



His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing round a dingy
hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach there was only one mourner,
dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential to the dignity of the
position. The position appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing
rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and incessantly
groaning and calling out: `Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!' with many compliments too
numerous and forcible to repeat.



Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he always pricked up
his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passed Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, a
funeral with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man
who ran against him:



`What is it, brother? What's it about?'



`I don't know,' said the man. `Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!'



He asked another man. `Who is it?'



`I don't know,' returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth nevertheless, and
vociferating in a surprising heat and with the greatest ardour, `Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst!
Spi-ies!'



At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled against him, and
from this person he learned that the funeral was the funeral of One Roger Cly.



`Was He a spy?' asked Mr. Cruncher.



`Old Bailey spy,' returned his informant. `Yaha Tst! Yah! Old Bailey Spi-i-ies!'



`Why, to be sure!' exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had assisted. `I've
seen him. Dead, is he?'



`Dead as mutton,' returned the other, `and can't be too dead. Have `em out, there Spies!
Pull `em out, there! Spies!'



The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that the crowd caught it
up with eagerness, and, loudly repeating the suggestion to have `em out, and to pull em
out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening
the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out of himself and was in their hands for a
moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another moment he
was scouring away up a bystreet, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket
handkerchief, and other symbolical tears.



These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great enjoyment, while
the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at
nothing, and was a monster much dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the
hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being
escorted to destinationamidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much needed,
this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled
with eight inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as
could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers was
Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of
Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourning coach.



The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in the ceremonies;
but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold
immersion in bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was
faint and brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the
hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection,
for the purpose--and with a pieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the
mourning coach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as an
additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and his bear, who
was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in
which he walked.



Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe,
the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops
shutting up before it. Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the
fields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground;
finally, accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly
to its own satisfaction.



The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of providing some other
entertainment for itself, another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the
humour of impeaching casual passersby, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on
them. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the
Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled
and maltreated. The transition to the sport of window-breaking, and thence to the
plundering of public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when

sundry summerhouses had been pulled dow and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm
the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards we coming. Before this
rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they
never came, and this was the usual progress of a mob.



Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, hut had remained behind in the
churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence
on him. He procured a pipe from a neighbouring public house, and smoked it,

looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot.



`Jerry,' said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, `you see that there
Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that he was a young `un and a straight made
`un.'



Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himself about, that
he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his station at Tellson's. Whether his
meditations on mortality had touched his liver, or whether his general health had been
previously at all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent
man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical
adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back.



Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No job in his absence.
The bank closed, the ancient clerks came Out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher
and his son went home to tea.



`Now, I tell you where it is!' said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on entering. `If, as a
honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong tonight, I shall make sure that you've been
praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.'



The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head.



`Why, you're at it afore my face!' said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry apprehension.



`I am saying nothing.'



`Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as well meditate. You may as well go again
me one way as another. Drop it altogether.'



`Yes Jerry.'



`Yes, Jerry,' repeated Mr. Cruncher, sitting down to tea. `Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That's
about it. You may say yes, Jerry.'



Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, but made use of
them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction.



`You and your yes, Jerry,' said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread-and-butter,
and seeming to help it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. `Ah! I think
so. I believe you.'



`You are going out to-night?' asked his decent wife, when he took another bite.



`Yes, I am.'



`May I go with you, father?' asked his son, briskly.



`No, you mayn't. I'm a going--as your mother knows--a fishing. That's where I'm going to.
Going a fishing.'



`Your fishing rod gets rather rusty; don't it, father?'



`Never you mind.'



`Shall you bring any fish home, father?'



`If I don't, you'll have short commons, tomorrow,' returned that gentleman, shaking his
head; `that's questions enough for you; I ain't a going out, till you've been long a-bed.'



He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a most vigilant watch on
Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenlyholding her in conversation that she might be prevented from
meditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her
in conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes
of complaint lie could bring against her, rather than he would leave her for a moment to
her own reflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the
efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his Mile. It was as if a