persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he

grumbled, “but I am determined to be peevish after my long day’s

botheration. Where is Manette?”

“Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the

moment.

“I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and

forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long, have

made me nervous without reason. You are not going out, I hope?”

“No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,” said

the Doctor.

“I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to

be pitted against you tonight. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I

can’t see.”

“Of course, it has been kept for you.”

“Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?”

“And sleeping soundly.”

“That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why anything

should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have

been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my

dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and

let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you have your

theory.”

“Not a theory; it was a fancy.”

“A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand.

“They are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not?

Only hear them!”

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

anybody’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once

stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the

little circle sat in the dark London window.

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of

scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above

the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the

sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine,

and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled

branches of trees in a winter wind; all the fingers convulsively

clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was

thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off.

Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began,

through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores

at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no

eye in the throng could have told; but, muskets were being

distributedso were cartridges, powder and ball, bars of iron and

wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity

could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of nothing

else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks

out of their places in walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine

was on high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. Every living

creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a