Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating sincethe sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until itfills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeonlights burning, as the lamp of life hums 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 theyare blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, asadmitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfitfor life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on andis gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes onTom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep.
Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out ofParliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tomshall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road byconstables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force offigures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, orby low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set tosplitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of hismind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In themidst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectlyclear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, bereclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice.
And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost inhis old determined spirit.
But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, andthey serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop ofTom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagionsomewhere. It shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream(in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) ofa Norman house, and his Grace shall not be able to say nay to theinfamous alliance. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not acubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not oneobscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not awickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work itsretribution through every order of society up to the proudest ofthe proud and to the highest of the high. Verily, what withtainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has his revenge.
It is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or bynight, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it themore shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to theimagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, daycarries it. The day begins to break now; and in truth it might bebetter for the national glory even that the sun should sometimesset upon the British dominions than that it should ever rise uponso vile a wonder as Tom.
A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude forsleep to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on arestless pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attractedby curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down themiserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his brightdark eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here andthere, he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studiedit before.
On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the mainstreet of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazyhouses, shut up and silent. No waking creature save himselfappears except in one direction, where he sees the solitary figureof a woman sitting on a door-step. He walks that way.
Approaching, he observes that she has journeyed a long distance andis footsore and travel-stained. She sits on the door-step in themanner of one who is waiting, with her elbow on her knee and herhead upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas bag, or bundle, she hascarried. She is dozing probably, for she gives no heed to hissteps as he comes toward her.
The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes towhere 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 walting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--not here," the woman patiently returns. "I'm waiting here becausethere will be sun here presently to warm me.""I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in thestreet.""Thank you, sir. It don't matter."A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage orcondescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, manypeople deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like littlespelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily.
"Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am adoctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world."He knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed handhe can soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection,saying, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on thewounded place when she lifts it up to the light.
"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be verysore.""It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tearupon her cheek.
"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won'thurt you.""Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!"He cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefullyexamined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takesa small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. Whilehe is thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing asurgery in the street, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?""How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished.
"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and onyour dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at pieceworkin different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruelto their wives too."The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that herinjury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon herforehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly dropsthem again.
"Where is he now?" asks the surgeon.
"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at thelodging-house.""He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large andheavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutalas he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deservedit. You have no young child?"The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it'sLiz's.""Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!"By this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "Isuppose 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 andcurtsys.
"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At SaintAlbans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a startlike, as if you did.""Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question inreturn. Have you money for your lodging?""Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. Hetells her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that sheis 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 whichhe descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees aragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to thesoiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--andfurtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youthwhose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He isso intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of astranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. Heshades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes on the otherside of the way, and goes shrinking and creeping on with hisanxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging inshreds. Clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, itwould 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 ashadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recallhow or where, but there is some association in his mind with such aform. He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital orrefuge, still, cannot make out why it comes with any special forceon 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, andlooking round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed,followed by the woman.
"Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breath less. "Stophim, sir!"He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy isquicker than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comesup half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still thewoman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, notknowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows inchase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, buteach time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours awayagain. To strike at him on any of these occasions would be to felland ............