sl@0: The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens sl@0: sl@0: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with sl@0: almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or sl@0: re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included sl@0: with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net sl@0: sl@0: Title: A Tale of Two Cities sl@0: A story of the French Revolution sl@0: sl@0: Author: Charles Dickens sl@0: sl@0: sl@0: The Period sl@0: sl@0: sl@0: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, sl@0: it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, sl@0: it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, sl@0: it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, sl@0: it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, sl@0: we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, sl@0: we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct sl@0: the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present sl@0: period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its sl@0: being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree sl@0: of comparison only. sl@0: sl@0: There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, sl@0: on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and sl@0: a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both sl@0: countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State sl@0: preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were sl@0: settled for ever. sl@0: sl@0: It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sl@0: seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at sl@0: that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently sl@0: attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a sl@0: prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime sl@0: appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the sl@0: swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane sl@0: ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping sl@0: out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past sl@0: (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. sl@0: Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to sl@0: the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects sl@0: in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important sl@0: to the human race than any communications yet received through sl@0: any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood. sl@0: sl@0: France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than sl@0: her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding sl@0: smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. sl@0: Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained sl@0: herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing sl@0: a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with sl@0: pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled sl@0: down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks sl@0: which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sl@0: sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of sl@0: France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer sl@0: was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come sl@0: down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework sl@0: with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely sl@0: enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy sl@0: lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather sl@0: that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed sl@0: about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, sl@0: had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. sl@0: But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, sl@0: work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with sl@0: muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion sl@0: that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. sl@0: sl@0: In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection sl@0: to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed sl@0: men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself sl@0: every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of sl@0: town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses sl@0: for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in sl@0: the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow- sl@0: tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," sl@0: gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was sl@0: waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then sl@0: got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the sl@0: failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in sl@0: peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was sl@0: made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, sl@0: who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his sl@0: retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their sl@0: turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among sl@0: them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off sl@0: diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court sl@0: drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for sl@0: contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the sl@0: musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these sl@0: occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, sl@0: the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in sl@0: constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous sl@0: criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been sl@0: taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by sl@0: the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; sl@0: to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a sl@0: wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence. sl@0: sl@0: All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in sl@0: and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred sl@0: and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the sl@0: Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those sl@0: other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, sl@0: and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the sl@0: year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their sl@0: Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures--the creatures of this sl@0: chronicle among the rest--along the roads that lay before them. sl@0: sl@0: sl@0: sl@0: II sl@0: sl@0: The Mail sl@0: sl@0: sl@0: It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, sl@0: before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. sl@0: The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered sl@0: up Shooter's Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the sl@0: mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the sl@0: least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but sl@0: because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were sl@0: all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, sl@0: besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous sl@0: intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman sl@0: and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war sl@0: which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, sl@0: that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had sl@0: capitulated and returned to their duty. sl@0: sl@0: With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way sl@0: through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, sl@0: as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often sl@0: as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a sl@0: wary "Wo-ho! so-ho-then!" the near leader violently shook his sl@0: head and everything upon it--like an unusually emphatic horse, sl@0: denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the sl@0: leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous sl@0: passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. sl@0: sl@0: There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed sl@0: in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest sl@0: and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its sl@0: slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and sl@0: overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might sl@0: do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of sl@0: the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of sl@0: road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if sl@0: they had made it all. sl@0: sl@0: Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill sl@0: by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones sl@0: and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three sl@0: could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other sl@0: two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers sl@0: from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his sl@0: two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being sl@0: confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be sl@0: a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every sl@0: posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in "the Captain's" sl@0: pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, sl@0: it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the sl@0: Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one sl@0: thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's sl@0: Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, sl@0: beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest sl@0: before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or sl@0: eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass. sl@0: sl@0: The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard sl@0: suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another sl@0: and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman sl@0: was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could sl@0: with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments sl@0: that they were not fit for the journey. sl@0: sl@0: "Wo-ho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you're sl@0: at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to sl@0: get you to it!--Joe!" sl@0: sl@0: "Halloa!" the guard replied. sl@0: sl@0: "What o'clock do you make it, Joe?" sl@0: sl@0: "Ten minutes, good, past eleven."