Chapter 55. Rob the Grinder loses his Place

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

The Porter at the iron gate which shut the court-yard from the
street, had left the little wicket of his house open, and was gone
away; no doubt to mingle in the distant noise at the door of the
great staircase. Lifting the latch softly, Carker crept out, and
shutting the jangling gate after him with as little noise as
possible, hurried off.

In the fever of his mortification and unavailing rage, the panic
that had seized upon him mastered him completely. It rose to such a
height that he would have blindly encountered almost any risk, rather
than meet the man of whom, two hours ago, he had been utterly
regardless. His fierce arrival, which he had never expected; the
sound of his voice; their having been so near a meeting, face to
face; he would have braved out this, after the first momentary shock
of alarm, and would have put as bold a front upon his guilt as any
villain. But the springing of his mine upon himself, seemed to have
rent and shivered all his hardihood and self-reliance. Spurned like
any reptile; entrapped and mocked; turned upon, and trodden down by
the proud woman whose mind he had slowly poisoned, as he thought,
until she had sunk into the mere creature of his pleasure; undeceived
in his deceit, and with his fox's hide stripped off, he sneaked away,
abashed, degraded, and afraid.

Some other terror came upon hIm quite removed from this of being
pursued, suddenly, like an electric shock, as he was creeping through
the streets Some visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable,
asssociated with a trembling of the ground, - a rush and sweep of
something through the air, like Death upon the wing. He shrunk, as if
to let the thing go by. It was not gone, it never had been there, yet
what a startling horror it had left behind.

He raised his wicked face so full of trouble, to the night sky,
where the stars, so full of peace, were shining on him as they had
been when he first stole out into the air; and stopped to think what
he should do. The dread of being hunted in a strange remote place,
where the laws might not protect him - the novelty of the feeling
that it was strange and remote, originating in his being left alone
so suddenly amid the ruins of his plans - his greater dread of
seeking refuge now, in Italy or in Sicily, where men might be hired
to assissinate him, he thought, at any dark street corner-the
waywardness of guilt and fear - perhaps some sympathy of action with
the turning back of all his schemes - impelled him to turn back too,
and go to England.

'I am safer there, in any case. If I should not decide,' he
thought, 'to give this fool a meeting, I am less likely to be traced
there, than abroad here, now. And if I should (this cursed fit being
over), at least I shall not be alone, with out a soul to speak to, or
advise with, or stand by me. I shall not be run in upon and worried
like a rat.'

He muttered Edith's name, and clenched his hand. As he crept
along, in the shadow of the massive buildings, he set his teeth, and
muttered dreadful imprecations on her head, and looked from side to
side, as if in search of her. Thus, he stole on to the gate of an
inn-yard. The people were a-bed; but his ringing at the bell soon
produced a man with a lantern, in company with whom he was presently
in a dim coach-house, bargaining for the hire of an old phaeton, to
Paris.

The bargain was a short one; and the horses were soon sent for.
Leaving word that the carriage was to follow him when they came, he
stole away again, beyond the town, past the old ramparts, out on the
open road, which seemed to glide away along the dark plain, like a
stream.

Whither did it flow? What was the end of it? As he paused, with
some such suggestion within him, looking over the gloomy flat where
the slender trees marked out the way, again that flight of Death came
rushing up, again went on, impetuous and resistless, again was
nothing but a horror in his mind, dark as the scene and undefined as
its remotest verge.

There was no wind; there was no passing shadow on the deep shade
of the night; there was no noise. The city lay behind hIm, lighted
here and there, and starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire
and roof that hardly made out any shapes against the sky. Dark and
lonely distance lay around him everywhere, and the clocks were
faintly striking two.

He went forward for what appeared a long time, and a long way;
often stopping to listen. At last the ringing of horses' bells
greeted his anxious ears. Now softer, and now louder, now inaudible,
now ringing very slowly over bad ground, now brisk and merry, it came
on; until with a loud shouting and lashing, a shadowy postillion
muffled to the eyes, checked his four struggling horses at his
side.

'Who goes there! Monsieur?'

'Yes.'

'Monsieur has walked a long way in the dark midnight.'

'No matter. Everyone to his task. Were there any other horses
ordered at the Post-house?'

'A thousand devils! - and pardons! other horses? at this hour?
No.'

'Listen, my friend. I am much hurried. Let us see how fast we
can travel! The faster, the more money there will be to drink. Off we
go then! Quick!'

'Halloa! whoop! Halloa! Hi!' Away, at a gallop, over the black
landscape, scattering the dust and dirt like spray!

The clatter and commotion echoed to the hurry and discordance of
the fugitive's ideas. Nothing clear without, and nothing clear
within. Objects flitting past, merging into one another, dimly
descried, confusedly lost sight of, gone! Beyond the changing scraps
of fence and cottage immediately upon the road, a lowering waste.
Beyond the shifting images that rose up in his mind and vanished as
they showed themselves, a black expanse of dread and rage and baffled
villainy. Occasionally, a sigh of mountain air came from the distant
Jura, fading along the plain. Sometimes that rush which was so
furious and horrible, again came sweeping through his fancy, passed
away, and left a chill upon his blood.

The lamps, gleaming on the medley of horses' heads, jumbled with
the shadowy driver, and the fluttering of his cloak, made a thousand
indistinct shapes, answering to his thoughts. Shadows of familiar
people, stooping at their desks and books, in their remembered
attitudes; strange apparitions of the man whom he was flying from, or
of Edith; repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling wheels, of
words that had been spoken; confusions of time and place, making last
night a month ago, a month ago last night - home now distant beyond
hope, now instantly accessible; commotion, discord, hurry, darkness,
and confusion in his mind, and all around him. - Hallo! Hi! away at a
gallop over the black landscape; dust and dirt flying like spray, the
smoking horses snorting and plunging as if each of them were ridden
by a demon, away in a frantic triumph on the dark road - whither?

Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes,
the bells ring in his ears 'whither?' The wheels roar in his ears
'whither?' All the noise and rattle shapes itself into that cry. The
lights and shadows dance upon the horses' heads like imps. No
stopping now: no slackening! On, on Away with him upon the dark road
wildly!

He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one
subject of reflection from another, sufficiently to dwell upon it, by
itself, for a minute at a time. The crash of his project for the
gaining of a voluptuous compensation for past restraint; the
overthrow of his treachery to one who had been true and generous to
him, but whose least proud word and look he had treasured up, at
interest, for years - for false and subtle men will always secretly
despise and dislike the object upon which they fawn and always resent
the payment and receipt of homage that they know to be worthless;
these were the themes uppermost in his mind. A lurking rage against
the woman who had so entrapped him and avenged herself was always
there; crude and misshapen schemes of retaliation upon her, floated
in his brain; but nothing was distinct. A hurry and contradiction
pervaded all his thoughts. Even while he was so busy with this
fevered, ineffectual thinking, his one constant idea was, that he
would postpone reflection until some indefinite time.

Then, the old days before the second marriage rose up in his
remembrance. He thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how
jealous he had been of the girl, how artfully he had kept intruders
at a distance, and drawn a circle round his dupe that none but
himself should cross; and then he thought, had he done all this to be
flying now, like a scared thief, from only the poor dupe?

He could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice, but it
was the very shadow of his defeat, and could not be separated from
it. To have his confidence in his own knavery so shattered at a blow
- to be within his own knowledge such a miserable tool - was like
being paralysed. With an impotent ferocity he raged at Edith, and
hated Mr Dombey and hated himself, but still he fled, and could do
nothing else.

Again and again he listened for the sound of wheels behind.
Again and again his fancy heard it, coming on louder and louder. At
last he was so persuaded of this, that he cried out, 'Stop'
preferring even the loss of ground to such uncertainty.

The word soon brought carriage, horses, driver, all in a heap
together, across the road.

'The devil!' cried the driver, looking over his shoulder,
'what's the matter?'

'Hark! What's that?'

'What?'

'That noise?'

'Ah Heaven, be quiet, cursed brigand!' to a horse who shook his
bells 'What noise?'

'Behind. Is it not another carriage at a gallop? There! what's
that?' Miscreant with a Pig's head, stand still!' to another horse,
who bit another, who frightened the other two, who plunged and
backed. 'There is nothing coming.'

'Nothing.'

'No, nothing but the day yonder.'

'You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!'

The entangled equipage, half hidden in the reeking cloud from
the horses, goes on slowly at first, for the driver, checked
unnecessarily in his progress, sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and
puts a new lash to his whip. Then 'Hallo, whoop! Hallo, hi!' Away
once more, savagely.

And now the stars faded, and the day glimmered, and standing in
the carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he
had come, and see that there was no traveller within view, on all the
heavy expanse. And soon it was broad day, and the sun began to shine
on cornfields and vineyards; and solitary labourers, risen from
little temporary huts by heaps of stones upon the road, were, here
and there, at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by,
there were peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or
lounging at the doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he
passed. And then there was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with
steaming dunghills and vast outhouses half ruined; and looking on
this dainty prospect, an immense, old, shadeless, glaring, stone
chateau, with half its windows blinded, and green damp crawling
lazily over it, from the balustraded terrace to the taper tips of the
extinguishers upon the turrets.

Gathered up moodily in a corner of the carriage, and only intent
on going fast - except when he stood up, for a mile together, and
looked back; which he would do whenever there was a piece of open
country - he went on, still postponing thought indefinitely, and
still always tormented with thinking to no purpose.

Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a
constant apprehension of being overtaken, or met - for he was
groundlessly afraid even of travellers, who came towards him by the
way he was going - oppressed him heavily. The same intolerable awe
and dread that had come upon him in the night, returned unweakened in
the day. The monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping of the
horses; the monotony of his anxiety, and useless rage; the monotonous
wheel of fear, regret, and passion, he kept turning round and round;
made the journey like a vision, in which nothing was quite real but
his own torment.

It was a vision of long roads, that stretched away to an
horizon, always receding and never gained; of ill-paved towns, up
hill and down, where faces came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows,
and where rows of mudbespattered cows and oxen were tied up for sale
in the long narrow streets, butting and lowing, and receiving blows
on their blunt heads from bludgeons that might have beaten them in;
of bridges, crosses, churches, postyards, new horses being put in
against their wills, and the horses of the last stage reeking,
panting, and laying their drooping heads together dolefully at stable
doors; of little cemeteries with black crosses settled sideways in
the graves, and withered wreaths upon them dropping away; again of
long, long roads, dragging themselves out, up hill and down, to the
treacherous horizon.

Of morning, noon, and sunset; night, and the rising of an early
moon. Of long roads temporarily left behind, and a rough pavement
reached; of battering and clattering over it, and looking up, among
house-roofs, at a great church-tower; of getting out and eating
hastily, and drinking draughts of wine that had no cheering
influence; of coming forth afoot, among a host of beggars - blind men
with quivering eyelids, led by old women holding candles to their
faces; idiot girls; the lame, the epileptic, and the palsied - of
passing through the clamour, and looking from his seat at the
upturned countenances and outstretched hands, with a hurried dread of
recognising some pursuer pressing forward - of galloping away again,
upon the long, long road, gathered up, dull and stunned, in his
corner, or rising to see where the moon shone faintly on a patch of
the same endless road miles away, or looking back to see who
followed.

Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and
springing up with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice.
Of cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let
her go, for not having confronted and defied him. Of having a deadly
quarrel with the whole world, but chiefly with himself. Of blighting
everything with his black mood as he was carried on and away.

It was a fevered vision of things past and present all
confounded together; of his life and journey blended into one. Of
being madly hurried somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes
starting up among the novelties through which he travelled. Of musing
and brooding over what was past and distant, and seeming to take no
notice of the actual objects he encountered, but with a wearisome
exhausting consciousness of being bewildered by them, and having
their images all crowded in his hot brain after they were gone.

A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of
bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of town and country,
postyards, horses, drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road
and pavement, height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the
same monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. A
vision of tending on at last, towards the distant capital, by busier
roads, and sweeping round, by old cathedrals, and dashing through
small towns and villages, less thinly scattered on the road than
formerly, and sitting shrouded in his corner, with his cloak up to
his face, as people passing by looked at him.

Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always
racked with thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had
been upon the road, or to comprehend the points of time and place in
his journey. Of being parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing
on, in spite of all, as if he could not stop, and coming into Paris,
where the turbid river held its swift course undisturbed, between two
brawling streams of life and motion.

A troubled vision, then, of bridges, quays, interminable
streets; of wine-shops, water-carriers, great crowds of people,
soldiers, coaches, military drums, arcades. Of the monotony of bells
and wheels and horses' feet being at length lost in the universal din
and uproar. Of the gradual subsidence of that noise as he passed out
in another carriage by a different barrier from that by which he had
entered. Of the restoration, as he travelled on towards the seacoast,
of the monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no
rest.

Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and
dead of night, and feeble lights in windows by the roadside; and
still the old monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no
rest. Of dawn, and daybreak, and the rising of the sun. Of tolling
slowly up a hill, and feeling on its top the fresh sea-breeze; and
seeing the morning light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of
coming down into a harbour when the tide was at its full, and seeing
fishing-boats float on, and glad women and children waiting for them.
Of nets and seamen's clothes spread out to dry upon the shore; of
busy saIlors, and their voices high among ships' masts and rigging;
of the buoyancy and brightness of the water, and the universal
sparkling.

Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the
deck when it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little
opening of bright land where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash,
and murmur of the calm sea. Of another grey line on the ocean, on the
vessel's track, fast growing clearer and higher. Of cliffs and
buildings, and a windmill, and a church, becoming more and more
visible upon it. Of steaming on at last into smooth water, and
mooring to a pier whence groups of people looked down, greeting
friends on board. Of disembarking, passing among them quickly,
shunning every one; and of being at last again in England.

He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote
country-place he knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly
informed himself of what transpired, and determined how to act, Still
in the same stunned condition, he remembered a certain station on the
railway, where he would have to branch off to his place of
destination, and where there was a quiet Inn. Here, he indistinctly
resolved to tarry and rest.

With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as
he could, and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep,
was soon borne far away from the sea, and deep into the inland green.
Arrived at his destination he looked out, and surveyed it carefully.
He was not mistaken in his impression of the place. It was a retired
spot, on the borders of a little wood. Only one house, newly-built or
altered for the purpose, stood there, surrounded by its neat garden;
the small town that was nearest, was some miles away. Here he
alighted then; and going straight into the tavern, unobserved by
anyone, secured two rooms upstairs communicating with each other, and
sufficiently retired.

His object was to rest, and recover the command of himself, and
the balance of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage - so that, as
he walked about his room, he ground his teeth - had complete
possession of him. His thoughts, not to be stopped or directed, still
wandered where they would, and dragged him after them. He was
stupefied, and he was wearied to death.

But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest
again, his drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness. He had
no more influence with them, in this regard, than if they had been
another man's. It was not that they forced him to take note of
present sounds and objects, but that they would not be diverted from
the whole hurried vision of his journey. It was constantly before him
all at once. She stood there, with her dark disdainful eyes again
upon him; and he was riding on nevertheless, through town and
country, light and darkness, wet weather and dry, over road and
pavement, hill and valley, height and hollow, jaded and scared by the
monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest.

'What day is this?' he asked of the waiter, who was making
preparations for his dinner.

'Day, Sir?'

'Is it Wednesday?'

'Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.'

'I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.'

'Wants a few minutes of five o'clock, Sir. Been travelling a
long time, Sir, perhaps?'

'Yes'

'By rail, Sir?'

'Yes'

'Very confusing, Sir. Not much in the habit of travelling by
rail myself, Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.'

'Do many gentlemen come here?

'Pretty well, Sir, in general. Nobody here at present. Rather
slack just now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.'

He made no answer; but had risen into a sitting posture on the
sofa where he had been lying, and leaned forward with an arm on each
knee, staring at the ground. He could not master his own attention
for a minute together. It rushed away where it would, but it never,
for an instant, lost itself in sleep.

He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such
artificial means would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more
incoherent, dragged him more unmercifully after them - as if a
wretch, condemned to such expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild
horses. No oblivion, and no rest.

How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in
imagination hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly
than he. But he knew that he had been sitting a long time by
candle-light, when he started up and listened, in a sudden terror.

For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house
rattled, the fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come
up, and go darting by; and even when he had hurried to the window,
and saw what it was, he stood, shrinking from it, as if it were not
safe to look.

A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly,
tracked through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid
smoke, and gone! He felt as if he had been plucked out of its path,
and saved from being torn asunder. It made him shrink and shudder
even now, when its faintest hum was hushed, and when the lines of
iron road he could trace in the moonlight, running to a point, were
as empty and as silent as a desert.

Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted - or he thought so -
to this road, he went out, and lounged on the brink of it, marking
the way the train had gone, by the yet smoking cinders that were
lying in its track. After a lounge of some half hour in the direction
by which it had disappeared, he turned and walked the other way -
still keeping to the brink of the road - past the inn garden, and a
long way down; looking curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps, and
wondering when another Devil would come by.

A trembling of the ground, and quick vibration in his ears; a
distant shriek; a dull light advancing, quickly changed to two red
eyes, and a fierce fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible
bearing on of a great roaring and dilating mass; a high wind, and a
rattle - another come and gone, and he holding to a gate, as if to
save himself!

He waited for another, and for another. He walked back to his
former point, and back again to that, and still, through the
wearisome vision of his journey, looked for these approaching
monsters. He loitered about the station, waiting until one should
stay to call there; and when one did, and was detached for water, he
stood parallel with it, watching its heavy wheels and brazen front,
and thinking what a cruel power and might it had. Ugh! To see the
great wheels slowly turning, and to think of being run down and
crushed!

Disordered with wine and want of rest - that want which nothing,
although he was so weary, would appease - these ideas and objects
assumed a diseased importance in his thoughts. When he went back to
his room, which was not until near midnight, they still haunted him,
and he sat listening for the coming of another.

So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He
still lay listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration,
got up and went to the window, to watch (as he could from its
position) the dull light changing to the two red eyes, and the fierce
fire dropping glowing coals, and the rush of the giant as it fled
past, and the track of glare and smoke along the valley. Then he
would glance in the direction by which he intended to depart at
sunrise, as there was no rest for him there; and would lie down
again, to be troubled by the vision of his journey, and the old
monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet, until another came.
This lasted all night. So far from resuming the mastery of himself,
he seemed, if possible, to lose it more and more, as the night crept
on. When the dawn appeared, he was still tormented with thinking,
still postponing thought until he should be in a better state; the
past, present, and future all floated confusedly before him, and he
had lost all power of looking steadily at any one of them.

'At what time,' he asked the man who had waited on hIm
over-night, now entering with a candle, 'do I leave here, did you
say?'

'About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four,
Sir. - It don't stop.

He passed his hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his
watch. Nearly half-past three.

'Nobody going with you, Sir, probably,' observed the man. 'Two
gentlemen here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.'

'I thought you said there was nobody here,' said Carker, turning
upon him with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or
suspicious.

'Not then, sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short
train that stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?'

'No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.'

Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed he was at the
window as the man left the room. The cold light of morning had
succeeded to night and there was already, in the sky, the red
suffusion of the coming sun. He bathed his head and face with water -
there was no cooling influence in it for him - hurriedly put on his
clothes, paid what he owed, and went out.

The air struck chill and comfortless as it breathed upon him.
There was a heavy dew; and, hot as he was, it made him shiver. After
a glance at the place where he had walked last night, and at the
signal-lights burning in the morning, and bereft of their
significance, he turned to where the sun was rising, and beheld it,
in its glory, as it broke upon the scene.

So awful, so transcendent in its beauty, so divinely solemn. As
he cast his faded eyes upon it, where it rose, tranquil and serene,
unmoved by all the wrong and wickedness on which its beams had shone
since the beginning of the world, who shall say that some weak sense
of virtue upon Earth, and its in Heaven, did not manifest itself,
even to him? If ever he remembered sister or brother with a touch of
tenderness and remorse, who shall say it was not then?

He needed some such touch then. Death was on him. He was marked
off - the living world, and going down into his grave.

He paid the money for his journey to the country-place he had
thought of; and was walking to and fro, alone, looking along the
lines of iron, across the valley in one direction, and towards a dark
bridge near at hand in the other; when, turning in his walk, where it
was bounded by one end of the wooden stage on which he paced up and
down, he saw the man from whom he had fled, emerging from the door by
which he himself had entered

And their eyes met.

In the quick unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and
slipped on to the road below him. But recovering his feet
immediately, he stepped back a pace or two upon that road, to
interpose some wider space between them, and looked at his pursuer,
breathing short and quick.

He heard a shout - another - saw the face change from its
vindictive passion to a faint sickness and terror - felt the earth
tremble - knew in a moment that the rush was come - uttered a shriek
- looked round - saw the red eyes, bleared and dim, in the daylight,
close upon him - was beaten down, caught up, and whirled away upon a
jagged mill, that spun him round and round, and struck him limb from
limb, and licked his stream of life up with its fiery heat, and cast
his mutilated fragments in the air.

When the traveller, who had been recognised, recovered from a
swoon, he saw them bringing from a distance something covered, that
lay heavy and still, upon a board, between four men, and saw that
others drove some dogs away that sniffed upon the road, and soaked
his blood up, with a train of ashes.