and the windlass stopped. No man removed his hand from it now. Everyone waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to the work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal was given, and all the ring leaned forward.
For now the rope came in tightened and strained to its utmost, as it appeared, and the men turned heavily, and the windlass complained. It was scarcely endurable to look at the rope and think of its giving way. But ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, and the connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket with the two men holding on at the sides—a sight to make the head swim and oppress the heart—and tenderly supporting between them, slung and tied within, the figure of a poor, crushed, human creature.
A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept aloud, as this form almost without form was moved very slowly from its iron deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw. At first, none but the surgeon went close to it. He did what he could in its adjustment on the couch, but the best that he could do was to cover it. That gently done, he called to him Rachael and Sissy. And at that time the pale, worn, patient face was seen looking up at the sky, with the broken right hand lying bare on the outside of the covering garments, as if waiting to be taken by another hand.
They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and administered some drops of cordial and wine. Though he lay quite motionless looking up at the sky, he smiled and said, “Rachael.”
She stooped down on the grass at his side, and bent over him until her eyes were between his and the sky, for he could not so much as turn them to look at her.
“Rachael, my dear.”
She took his hand. He smiled again and said, “Don’t let ’t go.”
“Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear Stephen?”
“I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ been—dreadful, and dree, and long, my dear—but ’tis ower now. Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle! Fro’ first to last, a muddle!”
The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word.
“I ha’ fell into th’ pit, my dear, as have cost, wi’in the knowledge o’ old fo’k now livin’, hundreds and hundreds o’ men’s lives—fathers, sons, brothers, dear to thousands an’ thousands, an’ keeping ’em fro’ want and hunger. I ha’ fell into a pit that ha’ been wi’ th’ fire-damp crueller than battle. I ha’ read on ’t in the public petition, as onnyone may read, fro’ the men that works in pits, in which they ha’ pray’n and pray’n the lawmakers for Christ’s sake not to let their work be murder to ’em, but to spare ’em for th’ wives and children that they loves as well as gentlefo’k loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi’out need; when ’tis let alone, it kills wi’out need. See how we die an’ no need, one way an’ another—in a muddle—every day!”
He faintly said it, without any anger against anyone. Merely as the truth.
“Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her. Thou’rt not like to forget her now, and me so nigh her. Thou know’st—poor, patient, suff’rin’ dear—how thou didst work for her, seet’n all day long in her little chair at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshapen, awlung o’ sickly air as had’n no need to be, an’ awlung o’ working people’s miserable homes. A muddle! Aw a muddle!”
Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with his face turned up to the night sky.
“If aw th’ things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I should’n ha’ had’n need to coom heer. If we was not in a muddle among ourseln, I should’n ha’ been, by my own fellow-weavers and workin’ brothers, so mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know’d me right—if he’d ever know’d me at aw—he would’n ha’ took’n offence wi’ me. He would’n ha’ suspect’n me. But look up yonder, Rachael! Look aboove!”
Following his eyes, she saw that he was gazing at a star.
“It ha’ shined upon me,” he said reverently, “in my pain and trouble down below. It ha’ shined into my mind. I ha’ look’n at ’t and thowt o’ thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa above a