And yet he had not even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in him. Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad, than indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships.
When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode: when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil.
So, James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he happened to be travelling. The end to which it led was before him, pretty plainly; but he troubled himself with no calculations about it. What will be, will be.
As he had rather a long ride to take that day – for there was a public occasion “to do” at some distance, which afforded a tolerable opportunity of going in for the Gradgrind men – he dressed early, and went down to breakfast. He was anxious to see if she had relapsed since the previous evening. No. He resumed where he had left off. The was a look of interest for him again.
He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own satisfaction, as was to be expected under the fatiguing circumstances; and came riding back at six o’clock. There was a sweep of some half mile between the lodge and the house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the smooth gravel, once Nickits’s, when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy across the road.
“Harthouse,” cried Mr. Bounderby. “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?” said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly favouring Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes.
“Then you haven’t heard!”
“I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have heard nothing else.”
Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the path before the horse’s head, to explode his bombshell with more effect.
“The Bank’s robbed!”
“You don’t mean it!”
“Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary manner. Robbed with a false key.”
“Of much?”
Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really seemed mortified by being obliged to reply, “Why, no; not of very much. But it might have been.”
“Of how much?”
“Oh! as a sum – if you stick to a sum – of not more than a hundred and fifty pound,” said Bounderby, with impatience. “But it’s not the sum; it’s the fact. It’s the fact of the bank being robbed, that’s the important circumstance. I am surprised you don’t see it.”
“My dear Bounderby,” said James, dismounting, and giving his bridle to his servant, “I do see it; and am as overcome as you can possibly desire me to be, by the spectacle afforded to my mental view. Nevertheless, I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you – which I do with all my soul, I assure you – on your not having sustained a greater loss.”
“Thank’ee,” replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious manner. “But I tell you what. It might have been twenty thousand pound.”
“I suppose it might.”
“Suppose it might! By the Lord, you may suppose so. By George!” said Mr. Bounderby, with sundry menacing nods and shakes of his head, “It might have been twice twenty. There’s no knowing what it would have been, or wouldn’t have been, as it was, but for the fellows’ being disturbed.”
Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer.
“Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows pretty well what it might have been, if you don’t,” blustered Bounderby. “Dropped, sir, as if she was shot when I told her! Never knew her to do such a thing before. Does her credit, under the circumstances, in my opinion!”