force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.

“‘We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we

common dogs are by those superior Beingstaxed by him without

mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our

corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our

wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame

bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree that when

we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door

barred and the shutters closed, that his people should not see it

and take it from usI say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and

were made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing

to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most pray

for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable race

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

die out!’ “I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed,

bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in

the people somewhere; but. I had never seen it break out, until I

saw it in the dying boy.

“‘Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that

time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend

and comfort him in our cottageour dog-hut, as that man would

call it. She had not been married many weeks, when that man’s

brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her

to himfor what are husbands among us! He was willing enough,

but my sister was good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a

hatred as strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her

husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing?’

“The boy’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned

to the looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was

true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I

can see, even in this Bastille; the gentleman’s all negligent

indifference; the peasant’s, all trodden-down sentiment, and

passionate revenge.

“‘You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles

to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so

harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is among their

Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in

order that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him

out in the unwholesome mists at night, and ordered him back into

his harness in the day. But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out

of harness one day at noon, to feedif he could find foodhe

sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the bell, and died on

her bosom.’ “Nothing human could have held life in the boy but

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his determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the

gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand

to remain clenched, and to cover his wound.

“‘Then, with that man’s permission and even with his aid, his

brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told

his brotherand what that is, will not be long unknown to you,