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 burns

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 byways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright

dark eye there is passionate" title="a.有同情心的 vt.同情">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 doorstep. He walks that way. Approaching,

he observes that she has journeyed a long distance, and is footsore

and travel-stained. She sits on the doorstep 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 waiting 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."

"O 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 you know that, sir?" asked 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 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 curtseys.

"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 acknowledgement 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 breathless.

"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 grimlyridiculous 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.

"O 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 for to be? Iv'e 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 know'd to speak to, as ever

come across my crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to

be Inkwhich'd. 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 excresence 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!"Bleak House 868

"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,-"O 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?"

"Whishermaydie 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 after dark, and then go and beg a trifle of Mr

Sangsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me sumthink he wos,

though Mrs Sangsby she wus 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 Allen, 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 of 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 wos 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.

"Ay!" 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 give 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 does 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."

"Thank'ee, sir, thank'ee!" 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, and I

knows too 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.
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