Barnaby Rudge & A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Barsad,” said another voice, striking in.

      “That’s the name for a thousand pound!” cried Jerry.

      The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher’s elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself.

      “Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry’s, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad was not a Sheep of the Prisons.”

      Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared—

      “I’ll tell you,” said Sydney. “I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad.”

      “What purpose?” the spy asked.

      “It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some minutes of your company—at the office of Tellson’s Bank, for instance?”

      “Under a threat?”

      “Oh! Did I say that?”

      “Then, why should I go there?”

      “Really, Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.”

      “Do you mean that you won’t say, sir?” the spy irresolutely asked.

      “You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won’t.”

      Carton’s negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and made the most of it.

      “Now, I told you so,” said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his sister; “if any trouble comes of this, it’s your doing.”

      “Come, come, Mr. Barsad!” exclaimed Sydney. “Don’t be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank?”

      “I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with you.”

      “I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. Are we ready? Come then!”

      Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney’s arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved her affection, and with Sydney’s friendly reassurances, adequately to heed what she observed.

      They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’ walk. John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side.

      Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery little log or two of fire—perhaps looking into their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson’s, who had looked into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with which he saw a stranger.

      “Miss Pross’s brother, sir,” said Sydney. “Mr. Barsad.”

      “Barsad?” repeated the old gentleman, “Barsad? I have an association with the name—and with the face.”

      “I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,” observed Carton, coolly. “Pray sit down.”

      As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, “Witness at that trial.” Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised look of abhorrence.

      “Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate brother you have heard of,” said Sydney, “and has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again.”

      Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, “What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am about to return to him!”

      “Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?”

      “Just now, if at all.”

      “Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,” said Sydney, “and I have it from Mr. Barsad’s communication to a friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that he is retaken.”

      Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that it was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was silently attentive.

      “Now, I trust,” said Sydney to him, “that the name and influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to-morrow—you said he would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?—”

      “Yes; I believe so.”

      “—In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette’s not having had the power to prevent this arrest.”

      “He may not have known of it beforehand,” said Mr. Lorry.

      “But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how identified he is with his son-in-law.”

      “That’s true,” Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton.

      “In short,” said Sydney, “this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No man’s life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad.”

      “You need have good cards, sir,” said the spy.

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