Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

After this, there was silence; each was occupied with his thoughts, while the influence of the soft night and starry hour induced to contemplation.

“I hear the murmur of the train,” said the Religious.

“ ’Tis the up-train,” said her father. “We have yet a quarter of an hour; we shall be in good time.”

So saying, he guided the pony to where some lights indicated the station of the railway, which here crossed the moor. There was just time to return the pony to the person at the station from whom it had been borrowed, and obtain their tickets, when the bell of the down-train sounded, and in a few minutes the Religious and her companions were on their way to Mowbray, whither a course of two hours carried them.

It was two hours to midnight when they arrived at Mowbray station, which was about a quarter of a mile from the town. Labour had long ceased; a beautiful heaven, clear and serene, canopied the city of smoke and toil; in all directions rose the columns of the factories, dark and defined in the purple sky; a glittering star sometimes hovering by the crest of their tall and tapering forms.

The travellers proceeded in the direction of a suburb and approached the very high wall of an extensive garden. The moon rose as they reached it, tipped the trees with light, and revealed a lofty and centre portal, by the side of it a wicket at which Gerard rang. The wicket was quickly opened.

“I fear, holy sister,” said the Religious, “that I am even later than I promised.”

“Those that come in our lady’s name are ever welcome,” was the reply.

“Sister Marion,” said Gerard to the porteress, “we have been to visit a holy place.”

“All places are holy with holy thoughts, my brother.”

“Dear father, good night,” said the Religious; “the blessings of all the saints be on thee⁠—and on thee, Stephen, though thou dost not kneel to them.”

“Good night, mine own child,” said Gerard.

“I could believe in saints when I am with thee,” murmured Stephen; “Good night⁠—Sybil.”

When Gerard and his friend quitted the convent they proceeded at a brisk pace, into the heart of the town. The streets were nearly empty; and with the exception of some occasional burst of brawl or merriment from a beer-shop, all was still. The chief street of Mowbray, called Castle Street after the ruins of the old baronial stronghold in its neighbourhood, was as significant of the present civilization of this community as the haughty keep had been of its ancient dependence. The dimensions of Castle Street were not unworthy of the metropolis: it traversed a great portion of the town, and was proportionately wide; its broad pavements and its blazing gaslights indicated its modern order and prosperity; while on each side of the street rose huge warehouses, not as beautiful as the palaces of Venice, but in their way not less remarkable; magnificent shops; and here and there, though rarely, some ancient factory built among the fields in the infancy of Mowbray by some mill-owner not sufficiently prophetic of the future, or sufficiently confident in the energy and enterprise of his fellow-citizens, to foresee that the scene of his labours would be the future eyesore of a flourishing posterity.

Pursuing their course along Castle Street for about a quarter of a mile, Gerard and Stephen turned down a street which intersected it, and so on, through a variety of ways and winding lanes, till they arrived at an open portion of the town, a district where streets and squares and even rows, disappeared, and where the tall chimneys and bulky barrack-looking buildings that rose in all directions, clustering yet isolated, announced that they were in the principal scene of the industry of Mowbray. Crossing this open ground they gained a suburb, but one of a very different description to that in which was situated the convent where they had parted with Sybil. This one was populous, noisy, and lighted. It was Saturday night; the streets were thronged; an infinite population kept swarming to and fro the close courts and pestilential cul-de-sacs that continually communicated with the streets by narrow archways, like the entrance of hives, so low that you were obliged to stoop for admission: while ascending to these same streets, from their dank and dismal dwellings by narrow flights of steps the subterraneous nation of the cellars poured forth to enjoy the coolness of the summer night, and market for the day of rest. The bright and lively shops were crowded; and groups of purchasers were gathered round the stalls, that by the aid of glaring lamps and flaunting lanterns, displayed their wares.

“Come, come, it’s a prime piece,” said a jolly looking woman, who was presiding at a stall which, though considerably thinned by previous purchasers, still offered many temptations to many who could not purchase.

“And so it is, widow,” said a little pale man, wistfully.

“Come, come, it’s getting late, and your wife’s ill; you’re a good soul, we’ll say fi’pence a pound, and I’ll throw you the scrag end in for love.”

“No butcher’s meat tomorrow for us, widow,” said the man.

“And why not, neighbour? With your wages, you ought to live like a prizefighter, or the mayor of Mowbray at least.”

“Wages!” said the man, “I wish you may get ’em. Those villains, Shuffle and Screw, have sarved me with another bate ticket: and a pretty figure too.”

“Oh! the carnal monsters!” exclaimed the widow. “If their day don’t come, the bloody-minded knaves!”

“And for small cops, too! Small cops be hanged! Am I the man to send up a bad-bottomed cop, Widow Carey?”

“You sent up for snicks! I have known you man and boy John Hill these twenty summers, and never heard a word against you till you got into Shuffle and Screw’s mill. Oh! they are a bad yarn, John.”

“They do us all, widow. They pretends to give the same wages as the rest, and works it out in fines.