ridge on the opposite side of the road, and are on the hill above it,
and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered
with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp,
tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recognise the
tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would be well content
to precipitate himself over the hillside once again, as on the
evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!”
He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he
saw it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life.
“I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he
does not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we
know it, with our eyes. ‘Come on!’ says the chief of that company,
pointing to the village, ‘bring him fast to his tomb!’ and they bring
him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound
so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame.
Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him with
their guns—like this!”
He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward by the
butt-ends of muskets.
“As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls.
They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and
covered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh
again. They bring him into the village; all the village runs to look;
they take him past the mill, and up to the prison; all the village
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
f
A Tale of Two Cities
sees the prison gate open in the darkness of the night—and
swallow him—like this!”
He opened his mouth wide as he could, and shut it with a
sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar
the effect by opening it again. Defarge said, “Go on, Jacques.”
“All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in
a low voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain;
all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one,
within the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to
come out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools
upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make
a circuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him,
high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as
last night, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I
dare not call to him; he regards me like a dead man.”
Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks
of all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they
listened to the countryman’s story; the manner of all of them,
while it was secret, was authoritative too. They had the air of a
rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed,
each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the
road-mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee behind
them, with his agitated hand always gliding over the network of
fine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge standing between
them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the
window, by turns looking from him to them, and from them to
him.
“Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge.
“He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village
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