Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

Suddenly she cried out—she had picked up a hat and inside it was the name "Stephen Blackpool." An instant later a scream broke from her lips that echoed over the country-side. Before them, at their very feet, half-hidden by rubbish and grasses, yawned the ragged mouth of a dark, abandoned shaft. That instant both Rachel and Sissy guessed the truth—that Stephen, returning, had not seen the chasm in the darkness, and had fallen into its depths.

They ran and roused the town. Crowds came from Coketown. Rope and windlass were brought and two men were lowered into the pit. The poor fellow was there, alive but terribly injured. A rough bed was made, and so at last the crushed and broken form was brought up to the light and air.

A surgeon was at hand with wine and medicines, but it was too late. Stephen spoke with Rachel first, then called Mr. Gradgrind to him and asked him to clear the blemish from his name. He told him simply that he could do so through his son Tom. This was all. He died while they bore him home, holding the hand of Rachel, whom he loved.

Stephen's last words had told the truth to Mr. Gradgrind. He read in them that his own son was the robber. Tom's guilty glance had seen also. With suspicion removed from Stephen, he felt his own final arrest sure.

Sissy noted Tom's pale face and trembling limbs. Guessing that he would attempt flight too late, and longing to save the heartbroken father from the shame of seeing his son's arrest and imprisonment, she drew the shaking thief aside and in a whisper bade him go at once to Sleary, the proprietor of the circus to which her father had once belonged. She told him where the circus was to be found at that season of the year, and bade him ask Sleary to hide him for her sake till she came. Tom obeyed. He disappeared that night, and later Sissy told his father what she had done.

Mr. Gradgrind, with Sissy and Louisa, followed as soon as possible, intending to get his son to the nearest seaport and so out of the country on a vessel, for he knew that soon he himself, Tom's father, would be questioned and obliged to tell the truth. They traveled all night, and at length reached the town where the circus showed.

Sleary, for Sissy's sake, had provided Tom with a disguise in which not even his father recognized him. He had blacked his sullen face and dressed him in a moth-eaten greatcoat and a mad cocked hat, in which attire he played the role of a black servant in the performance. Tom met them, grimy and defiant, ashamed to meet Louisa's eyes, brazen to his father, anxious only to be saved from his deserved punishment.

A seaport was but three hours away. He was soon dressed and plans for his departure were completed. But at the last moment danger appeared. It came in the person of the porter of Bounderby's bank, who had all along suspected Tom. He had watched the Gradgrind house, followed its master when he left and now laid hands on Tom, vowing he would take him back to Coketown.

In this moment of the father's despair, Sleary the showman saved the day for the shivering thief. He agreed with the porter that as Tom was guilty of a crime he must certainly go with him, and he offered, moreover, to drive the captor and his prisoner at once to the nearest railroad station. He winked at Sissy as he proposed this, and she was not alarmed. The porter accepted the proposal at once, but he did not guess what the showman had in mind.

Sleary's horse was an educated horse. At a certain word from its owner it would stop and begin to dance, and would not budge from the spot till he gave the command in a particular way. He had an educated dog, also, that would do anything it was told. With this horse hitched to the carriage and this dog trotting innocently behind, the showman set off with the porter and Tom, while Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa, whom Sissy had told to trust in Sleary, waited all night for his return.