until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified Young
Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his father’s.
But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these
matters, not only stopped him in his running away, but lured him
back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped
in at the gate for the second time; but now they seemed to have got
a bite. There was a screwing and complaining sound down below,
and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight. By slow
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A Tale of Two Cities
degrees the weight broke away the earth upon it, and came to the
surface. Young Jerry very well knew what it would be; but, when
he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open,
he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off
again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.
He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary
than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one
highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the
coffin he had seen was running after him; and, pictured as
hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always
on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at his side—
perhaps taking his arm—it was a pursuer to shun. It was an
inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it was making the
whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the roadway
to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them like
a dropsical boy’s-Kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways
too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing
them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on
the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time
it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that
when the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half
dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed him
upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him,
and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell
asleep.
From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was
awakened after daybreak and before sunrise by the presence of
his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with
him; at least so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his
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A Tale of Two Cities
holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her
head against the headboard of the bed.
“I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “and I did.”
“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored.
“You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said Jerry,
“and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey;
why the devil don’t you?”
“I try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman protested, with
tears.
“Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? Is it
honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying
your husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?”
“You hadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.”
“It’s enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, “to be t"};
