Heaven, and help us! Look out, look out, and see if we are

pursued.

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us,

and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in

pursuit of us, but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Chapter XLIV

THE KNITTING DONE

n that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their

fate, Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The

Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not

in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers,

but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The

sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at

a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until

required, or to offer an opinion until invited.

“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good

Republican? Eh?”

“There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her

shrill notes, “in France.”

“Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her

hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear me speak.

My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man;

he has deserved well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence.

But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent

towards th