There was an universal murmur to the
same effect, though no man articulated a
word. Every eye was fixed on Stephen's
face. To repent of his determination, would
be to take a load from all their minds.
He looked around him, and knew that
it was so. Not a grain of anger with them
was in his heart; he knew them, far below
their surface weaknesses and misconceptions,
as no one but their fellow laborer could.

"I ha thowt on't, above a bit, sir. I
simply canna coom in. I rnun go th' way as
lays afore me. I mun tak my leave o' aw
heer."

He made a sort of reverence to them by
holding up his arms, and stood for the
moment in that attitude: not speaking until
they slowly dropped at his sides.

"Monny's the pleasant word as soom heer
has spok'n wi' me; monny's the face I see
heer, as I first seen when I were yoong and
lighter heart'n than now. I ha never had no
fratch afore, sin ever I were born, wi' any o' my
like; Gonnows I ha' none now that's o' my
makin'. Yo'll ca' me traitor and that—yo
I mean t' say," addressing Slackbridge,
"but 'tis easier to ca' than mak' out. So
let be."

He had moved away a pace or two to
come down from the platform, when he
remembered something he had not said, and
returned again.

"Haply," he said, turning his furrowed
face slowly about, that he might as it were
individually address the whole audience,
those both near and distant; "haply, when
this question has been tak 'n up and discoosed,
there'll be a threat to turn out if I'm let to
work among yo. I hope I shall die ere ever
such a time cooms, and I shall work solitary
among yo unless it cooms—truly, I mun
do 't, my friends; not to brave yo, but to
live. I ha nobbut work to live by; and
wheerever can I go, I who ha worked sin I
were no heighth at aw, in Coketown heer? I
mak' no complaints o'bein turned to the wa',
o' being outcasten and overlooken fro this
time forrard, but I hope I shall be let to
woi'k. If there is any right for me at aw, my
friends, I think 'tis that."

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was
audible in the building, but the slight rustle
of men moving a little apart, all along the
centre of the room, to open a means of
passing out, to the man with whom they had
all bound themselves to renounce companionship.
Looking at no one, and going his way
with a lowly steadiness upon him that
asserted nothing and sought nothing, Old
Stephen, with all his troubles on his head,
left the scene.

Then Slackbridge, who had kept his
oratorical arm extended during the going
out, as if he were repressing with infinite
solicitude and by a wonderful moral power
the vehement passions of the multitude,
applied himself to raising their spirits. Had
not the Roman Brutus, oh my British
countrymen, condemned his son to death;
and had not the Spartan mothers, oh my
soon to be victorious friends, driven their
flying children on the points of their enemies'
swords Then was it not the sacred
duty of the men of Coketown, with
forefathers before them, an admiring world
in company with them, and a posterity to
come after them, to hurl out traitors from
the tents they had pitched in a sacred and
a Godlike cause? The winds of Heaven
answered Yes; and bore Yes, east, west,
north, and south. And consequently three
cheers for the United Aggregate Tribunal!

Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave
the time. The multitude of doubtful faces
(a little conscience stricken) brightened at
the sound, and took it up. Private feeling
must yield to the common cause. Hurrah!
The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when
the assembly dispersed.

Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into
the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude
among a familiar crowd. The stranger in
the land who looks into ten thousand faces
for some answering look and never finds it, is
in cheering society as compared with him
who passes ten averted faces daily, that were
once the countenances of friends. Such
experience was to be Stephen's now, in every
waking moment of his life; at his work, on
his way to it and from it, at his door, at his
window, everywhere. By general consent,
they even avoided that side of the street on
which he habitually walked; and left it, of all
the working men, to him only.

He had been for many years, a quiet
silent man, associating but little with other
men, and used to companionship with his
own thoughts. He had never known before,
the strength of the want in his heart for the
frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word;
or the immense amount of relief that had
been poured into it by drops, through such
small means. It was even harder than he
could have believed possible, to separate in
his own conscience his abandonment by all
his fellows, from a baseless sense of shame and
disgrace.

The first four days of his endurance were
days so long and heavy, that he began to be
appalled by the prospect before him. Not
only did he see no Rachael all the time, but
he avoided every chance of seeing her; for,
although he knew that the prohibition did
not yet formally extend to the women
working in the factories, he found that some
of them with whom he was acquainted were
changed to him, and he feared to try others,
and dreaded that Rachael might be even
singled out from the rest if she were seen in
his company. So, he had been quite alone
during the four days, and had spoken to no
one, when, as he was leaving his work at
night, a young man of a very light complexion
accosted him in the street.