‘I’d leefer not coom to’t, sir; but sin you put th’ question — an not want’n t’ be ill-manner’n — I’ll answer. I ha passed a promess.’

‘Not to me, you know,’ said Bounderby. (Gusty weather with deceitful calms. One now prevailing.)

‘O no, sir. Not to yo.’

‘As for me, any consideration for me has had just nothing at all to do with it,’ said Bounderby, still in confidence with the wall. ‘If only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown had been in question, you would have joined and made no bones about it?’

‘Why yes, sir. ’Tis true.’

‘Though he knows,’ said Mr Bounderby, now blowing a gale, ‘that there are a set of rascals and rebels whom transportation is too good for! Now, Mr Harthouse, you have been knocking about in the world some time. Did you ever meet with anything like that man out of this blessed country?’ And Mr Bounderby pointed him out for inspection, with an angry finger.

‘Nay, ma’am,’ said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against the words that had been used, and instinctively addressing himself to Louisa, after glancing at her face. ‘Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt o’ th’ kind, ma’am, nowt o’ th’ kind. They’ve not doon me a kindness, ma’am, as I know and feel. But there’s not a dozen men amoong ’em, ma’am — a dozen? Not six — but what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest and by himseln. God forbid as I, that ha known, and had’n experience o’ these men aw my life — I, that ha ett’n an droonken wi’ ’em, an seet’n wi’ ’em, and toil’n wi’ ’em, and lov’n ’em, should fail fur to stan by ’em wi’ the truth, let ’em ha doon to me what they may!’

He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and character — deepened perhaps by a proud consciousness that he was faithful to his class under all their mistrust; but he fully remembered where he was, and did not even raise his voice.

‘No, ma’am, no. They’re true to one another, faithfo’ to one another, fectionate to one another, e’en to death. Be poor amoong ’em, be sick amoong ’em, grieve amoong ’em for onny o’ th’ monny causes that carries grieve to the poor man’s door, and they’ll be tender wi’ yo, gentle wi’ yo, comfortable wi’ yo, Chrisen wi’ yo. Be sure o’ that, ma’am. They’d be riven to bits, ere ever they’d be different.’

‘In short,’ said Mr Bounderby, ‘it’s because they are so full of virtues that they have turned you adrift. Go through with it while you are about it. Out with it.’

‘How ’tis, ma’am,’ resumed Stephen, appearing still to find his natural refuge in Louisa’s face, ‘that what is best in us fok, seems to turn us the most to trouble an misfort’n an mistake, I dunno. But ’tis so. I know ’tis, as I know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke. We’re patient too, an wants in general to do right. An’ I canna think the fawt is aw wi’ us.’

‘Now, my friend,’ said Mr Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated more, quite unconscious of it though he was, than by seeming to appeal to any one else, ‘if you will favour me with your attention for half a minute, I should like to have a word or two with you. You said just now, that you had nothing to tell us about this business. You are quite sure of that before we go any further.’

‘Sir, I am sure on ’t.’

‘Here’s a gentleman from London present,’ Mr Bounderby made a backhanded point at Mr James Harthouse with his thumb, ‘a Parliament gentleman. I should like him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and me, instead of taking the substance of it — for I know precious well, beforehand, what it will be; nobody knows better than I do, take notice! — instead of receiving it on trust from my mouth.’