Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

Being wealthy, he had tried the army, tried a Government position, tried Jerusalem, tried yachting and found himself bored by them all. At last he had tried facts and figures, having some idea these might help in politics. In London he had met the great believer in facts, Mr. Gradgrind, and had been sent by him to Coketown to make the acquaintance of his friend Bounderby. Harthouse thus met the mill owner, who introduced him to Louisa, now his wife.

The year of married life had not been a happy one for her. She was reserved and watchful and cold as ever, but Harthouse easily saw that she was ashamed of Bounderby's bragging talk and shrank from his coarseness as from a blow. He soon perceived, too, that the only love she had for any one was given to Tom, though the latter little deserved it. In his own mind Harthouse called her father a machine, her brother a whelp and her husband a bear.

Harthouse was attracted by Louisa's beauty no less than by her pride. He was without conscience or honor, and determined, though she was already married, to make her fall in love with him. He knew the surest way to her liking was to pretend an interest in Tom, and he at once began to flatter the sullen young fellow. Under his influence the latter was not long in telling the story of Louisa's marriage, and in boasting that he himself had brought it about for his own advancement.

To Louisa, Harthouse spoke regretfully of the lad's idle habits, yet hopefully of his future, so that she, deeming him honestly Tom's friend, confided in him, telling him of her brother's love of gambling and how she had more than once paid his debts by selling some of her own jewelry. In such ways as these Harthouse, step by step, gained an intimacy with her.

While Harthouse was thus setting his net, Stephen Blackpool, the mill worker, was on trial.

It was a time of great dissatisfaction among workmen throughout the country. In many towns they were banding themselves together into "unions" in order to gain more privileges and higher wages from their employers. This movement in time had reached Coketown. Rachel was opposed to these unions, believing they would in the end do their members more harm than good, and knowing her mind, Stephen had long ago promised her that he would never join one. The day had come, however, when a workman who thus declined was looked on with suspicion and dislike by his fellows, and at length—though all had liked and respected Stephen—because he steadfastly refused to join the rest, he found himself shunned. Day after day he went to and from his work alone and spoken to by none, and, not seeing Rachel in these days, was lonely and disheartened.

This condition of things did not escape the eye of Bounderby, who sent for Stephen and questioned him. But even in his trouble, thinking his fellow workmen believed themselves in the right, Stephen refused to complain or to bear tales of them. Bounderby, in his arrogance, chose to be angry that one of his mill-hands should presume not to answer his questions and discharged him forthwith, so that now Stephen found himself without friends, money or work.

Not wholly without friends, either, for Rachel was still the same. And he had gained another friend, too. While he told her that evening in his lodgings what had occurred, and that he must soon go in search of work in some other town, Louisa came to him. She had witnessed the interview in which her husband had discharged this faithful workman, had found out where he lived, and had made her brother Tom bring her there that she might tell Stephen how sorry she was and beg him to accept money from her to help him in his distress.

This kindness touched Stephen. He thanked her and took as a loan a small portion of the money she offered him.

Tom had come on this errand with his sister in a sulky humor. While he listened now a thought came to him. As Louisa talked with Rachel, he beckoned Stephen from the room and told him that he could perhaps aid him in finding work. He told him to wait during the next two or three evenings near the door of Bounderby's bank, and promised that he himself would seek Stephen there and tell him further.